General News
29 June, 2022
Postie calls time on 37-year career
PAUL ‘Pud’ Irving placed mail in the letterboxes of Terang for the final time today (Thursday) after 37 years serving as the town’s postie.
PAUL ‘Pud’ Irving placed mail in the letterboxes of Terang for the final time today (Thursday) after 37 years serving as the town’s postie.
Mr Irving has served in the iconic red and yellow through rain, hail or shine for almost four decades.
Ahead of his final run today, he acknowledged stepping in to retirement would be a difficult transition after his years on the bike.
“It’s going to be something different,” Mr Irving said.
“I’ll probably still wake up at the same time but just won’t have to go to work, which will be good.
“I don’t really have any plans for retirement. Nothing major at this stage. I think I’ll just hang around Terang and play a bit of golf.”
Mr Irving said he would miss the interactions he was able to have with members of the community and colleagues.
“It was probably just seeing the people which I enjoyed most,”he said.
“Once you knew everyone in the town, but in the last 10 years we’ve seen more people coming and going, so you don’t know everyone the way you once did.
“You used to have the older people, whose kids were staying or going on the farms, but now the kids head off to university and they’re not around anymore.”
The opportunity to get involved in Australia’s postal service was a family affair for Mr Irving.
“My family had mail runs,” he said.
“My brother worked here as a postie for a while and my other brothers had mail runs around The Sisters, Kolora and Glenormiston.
“My father had a mail run as well; he used to do the milk round around 3am-4am, then drive the school bus, then do his mail run before driving the school bus again in the afternoon.
“But there was a job going, so I put in for it.”
He said the experience had been a good one, with plenty of sights over the years from the unique characters of Terang.
“You see some funny things, and my old man always said the best time of the morning is early – especially in the summer time.
“You’d see funny things – back in the day you’d see people with the front door wide open with people sleeping in the passageway to get a bit of air going through the house.
“You just didn’t know whatyou’d see.”
