Shetland woman celebrates 40 years as sub postmistress
When Kathleen Anderson was a young mum in the 1980s she converted her front porch into a post office. It meant she could earn a little extra money as a sub-postmistress while juggling caring for her four young daughters. Her role was a vital one in the remote Reawick area of Shetland, where local people depended on her for paying their pensions or their family allowance. Now a grandmother of 10 and "the wrong side of 70", Kathleen is celebrating 40 years as Reawick's sub-postmistress.
She first opened her post office in June 1985 after former postmaster Peter Fraser died suddenly. She told BBC Scotland News: "I thought it would be a little extra money, because I was home here looking after children at the time."In those days most of the women around here weren't going out to work, because you couldn't, you had to drive too far and there were no childminders."Today, Kathleen continues to serve her remote community through the same hatch her brother-in-law built 40 years ago.To get her attention, customers walk through her front door and ring a bell next to her serving window.
In this remote part of the Westside of Shetland, there are no pubs or shops and the nearest post office to Kathleen's is about 10 miles away.She said: "It's very handy for folk in the community, sometimes I might get a customer that would pop in for a cup of tea".Her duties have changed significantly since she first opened four decades ago.She said: "It's not as busy now - at one time all the local pensioners came here for their pensions and anyone with a family came here for their family allowance."But that's no longer the case as everybody gets their money put into the bank."
Kathleen has had to adapt to the introduction of the controversial Horizon IT system and the change in consumer habits.She said: "I suppose now there's more returns, folk ordering online and returning parcels, there's more of that now, that never was the case before."Over the years, the post office allowed Kathleen to maintain a career while "most of the young mothers in the area would have been doing knitting of some sort for a bit of extra income".Family has always been at the heart of Reawick post office. Kathleen brought up her children and later cared for her grandchildren part time while running the business.
She said: "They used to love it. My youngest grandson would love sitting up here [by the hatch].""When the customers came in he would try to put their cards in the machine for them."Despite her many years of service, Kathleen has no intention of slowing down: "Well I'm over 70 and no I haven't had any thoughts of retiring yet."I thought when I was 70 it might be a good time to retire, but that didn't happen, then I thought 40 years of the post office – that would be a good time to retire, but, here I am and it's not happened yet.
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