LAWRENCE of THE SORTING OFFICE

John Wright on the famous faces who once delivered the post

- John Wright

You can’t beat the Peter O’Toole line about drinking: “I did quite enjoy the days when one went for a beer at one’s local in Paris and woke up in Corsica.” He also delivered letters.

“O’Toole lived in a series of dingy bedsits and friends’ sofas during his two years at Rada [1952-54, aged 20-22],” Robert Sellers wrote in Peter O’Toole: The Definitive Biography. “Money was difficult, too, especially in that first year, and O’Toole was forced to look for work.” The future Lawrence of Arabia star laboured “on a building site working the cement mixer. He also washed dishes in a Lyons’ Corner House restaurant... during the holidays he’d go back up to Leeds, where he often found part-time work as a postman.”

Few people become famous just for being a postie. One exception was a Welshman who became so popular in the 1930s that his 16-mile postal route is now affectionately named after him (the Simon Evans Way) by the Cleobury Mortimer Footpath Association “to reflect the way that the postman of Cleobury from 192639 followed the valley of the River Rea on his daily round.” They even have a pocket walk guide to highlight the beauty of South Shropshire as much as the man who brought it to life as a writer and broadcaster on country life.

Born at Tynyfedu, Powys, Simon Evans became a GPO messenger boy on leaving school. He fought in World War One, was wounded and invalided out then sent back to the trenches where he was gassed in 1918. After the war, he took up a postal round on Merseyside. Convalescence took him to Cleobury Mortimer where he was encouraged to do some walking and where he swapped his round with a local postman and stayed.