Give us a red letter day!

LET'S see if your influence can work on the Post Office when reason has failed.

The postbox that serves this part of Penclawdd is in just about the most inconvenient place it could be, outside the last, the very last, house at the end of its banana-shaped catchment area.

The various turnings off Waun y Felin, Abercedi, Llynfa and the houses along Gowerton Road form one distinct sub-district, but those wanting to post a letter all have to go to the farthest end regardless of what comes up the esturary by way of wind and rain.

Complaints have been made over the years and you'd have thought they would say, ''Oops, sorry butty, we'll sort it out sharpish'', but no.

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Some time ago I decided to press the matter. All replies took weeks or months but they kept harping on one or two limp strings, that the box complied with the terms of the Postal Licence, that there was an adequate number of boxes for the population and, once, that it was not clear from the map where was the entrance of the estate — all irrelevant to the one clear point that the box was in the wrong place — at the end instead of in the middle of its area.

The Postal Review Panel now tell me that the box is sited on the side of the road where collections can be made safely and where drivers on the way into Penclawdd can post safely, further that moving the box would be at ''a high cost including surveying the whole area for utilities etc, and ensuring safe road layouts.

The first points are quickly answered.

What we want is the box moved a few hundred yards back along the same road where the same conditions apply and which would be far better for pedestrians.

The argument about costs is obviously exaggerated — it's always an easy get-out — fairly near the middle of the stretch along Gowerton Road there is a bus stop newly created outside a little open space.

The City Engineers obviously checked and mapped the utilities there before doing the work and putting up a bus sign and the City Transport Department obviously agreed that it was a safe place for vehicles to stop. Our buses are one an hour at most so the chances of bus and post van coinciding are thin. Nobody is going to object to a postbox there. As for the cost of actually moving the box, of course times are hard and money is short so here's an offer.

I'm eighty-one (and a bit) but if they agree a sensible spot with me, I'll bring my own pick and shovel, bar and punner, dig the hole and ram it tight afterwards.

All I want is the postbox, a lad to hold it while I get it firmed and Tarmac to finish off. Fair enough?

D C Sage

Penclawdd, Swansea,