Dear Santa, I am looking forward to seeing you at Christmas. We bought a new house in Cranfield - I hope you can find it. It is beside the sea. You can park your reindeer on the banks. Listen to a Kilkeel primary school child read this letter for Santa. Extract from Radio Ulster programme "Up Country: Mourne Christmas", broadcast in 1980.

Some things don't change and Christmas has always been a busy time of year for postmen. Pete Sloan looked back over 50 years of Christmas deliveries for a 1980 Radio Ulster series "Up Country".

Apparently the children in particular looked out for him around Christmas time to see what he might be bringing, even if it was only a Christmas card. Pete delivered the post on his bicycle even on Christmas Day - although he did get Boxing Day off! Many of the letters were from America, as alot of people in the Mourne area had emigrated there over the years. Christmas was the main time in the year when people wrote home and sent presents. Some of the older folk couldn't read and write, so occasionally Pete would be asked to read the letter for them and write a reply as well. As he went around doing his Christmas deliveries Pete wasn't just offered tea and mince pies, but also a 'wee drink' to warm him up!

Listen to Pete Sloan talking to the programme's presenter about delivering the Christmas post in the Mourne district.
Extract from "Up Country: Mourne Christmas" (1980).

Relevant link: - Memories of a 1930s postmaster from Bellanaleck about Christmas deliveries.

Christmas memories were also evoked in a Radio Ulster Boxing Day programme called 'The Feast of Stephen' (sadly records don't reveal what year it was broadcast).

One lady remembered hanging up her stocking on the crane crook. Inside the stocking you usually found an apple, an orange and a sugarstick. If parents thought they could afford it you might have got a bugle, a whistle or, for the lads, a flash lamp. She lived in the Moy area and near to her house was Falls' shop, which sold spices, caraway seeds, etc and she was sent there before Christmas to get these ingredients for Christmas puddings and special breads. Peter Falls would give them a corn loaf and a half pint of whiskey for a Christmas box. These would be put away in a cupboard and wouldn't be brought out until Christmas evening, when the loaf would be cut for the tea and the whiskey put into a punch.

What presents were you given as a child? Is there singing and dancing in your house at Christmas? Do you remember Falls' shop? Share your Christmas memories by either using the form at the bottom of the page or by e-mailing ypam-online@bbc.co.uk .

Your Responses

Lynne Shooter - Feb '07
I found this web page very interesting,and would love to know if there has ever been Christmas Day post deliveries in England, hoping to clear a "friendly" dispute.