There was one postal delivery a day, and towards ten o’clock, the heads of the women beating their mats would be turned towards the allotment path to watch for “Old Postie”. Some days there were two, or even three, letters for Lark Rise; quite as often there were none; but there were few women who did not gaze longingly. This longing for letters was called “yearning” (pronounced “yarnin’”); “No, I be-ant expectin’ nothin’, but I be so yarnin’” one woman would say to another as they watched the old postman dawdle over the stile and between the allotment plots. On wet days he carried an old green gig umbrella with whalebone ribs, and, beneath its immense circumference he seemed to make no more progress than an overgrown mushroom. But at last he would reach and usually pass the spot where the watchers were standing.

“No, I ain’t got nothin’ for you, Mrs. Parish,” he would call. “Your young Annie wrote to you only last week. She’s got summat else to do besides sittin’ down on her arse writing home all the time.” Or, waving his arm for some woman to meet him, for he did not intend to go a step further than he was obliged: “One for you, Mrs. Knowles, and, my! ain’t it a thin-roed ‘un! Not much time to write to her mother these days. I took a good fat ‘un from her to young Chad Gubbins.”

So he went on, always leaving a sting behind, a gloomy, grumpy old man who seemed to resent having to serve such humble people. He had been a postman forty years and had walked an incredible number of miles in all weathers, so perhaps the resulting flat feet and rheumaticky limbs were to blame; but the whole hamlet rejoiced when at last he was pensioned off and a smart, obliging young postman took his place on the Lark Rise round.

Delighted as the women were with the letters from their daughters, it was the occasional parcels of clothing they sent that caused the greatest excitement. As soon as a parcel was taken indoors, neighbours who had seen Old Postie arrive with it would drop in, as though by accident, and stay to admire, or sometimes to criticise, the contents.

All except the aged women, who wore what they had been accustomed to wearing and were satisfied, were very particular about their clothes. Anything did for everyday wear, as long as it was clean and whole and could be covered with a decent white apron; it was the “Sunday best” that had to be just so. “Better be out of the world than out of the fashion” was one of their sayings. To be appreciated, the hat or coat contained in the parcel had to be in the fashion, and the hamlet had a fashion of its own, a year or two behind outside standards, and strictly limited as to style and colour.