A LETTER addressed “Dear Customer” has just arrived from the Royal Mail.

“We are making changes in your area to maintain your services and to keep our prices amongst the lowest in Europe,” it says.

It seems that fewer letters are now posted every day (the email system and other methods of communication are to blame) and it is apparently now necessary to organise delivery routes to be as “efficient as possible”.

Hmm. I will believe that when I see it.

The friendly letter about changes in Bolton North comes from the “Royal Mail Delivery Manager for your area” — a chap called Gavin Meredith apparently based in Plymouth.

I will wait for alleged efficiencies to manifest themselves while my memory casts back to the time — not long ago — that the town of Bolton had its own chap in charge, a head postmaster.