UK postcodes: The intrigue!

[Amy Z]

GulPlum wrote:

> "The little house just past the building with blue window frames 
near the 
> 'Golden Crown' pub, in a Wiltshire village with a charming name I 
can't 
> remember"
> 
> :-)
> 
> Would US (e.g.) postal services bother trying to decipher such an 
address?

I doubt it, unfortunately.  My mail would find its way to me with 
only my name, town, and state on it, or for that matter, "Harlow 
Lent's old place," town, state, would work just fine, even though 
Harlow is long gone and I never met him.  My postmaster is one of my 
closest friends in town, just because I talk to him a few times a 
week when I go to pick up my mail.  The PO is in the general store, 
and although I could have my mail delivered to my door (well, the end 
of my road anyway), I wouldn't have any contact with human life if I 
did that.  The general store is where you get the news.

We have *two* post offices serving our town of under 1000.  The 
neighboring town, not much bigger, has four that I can think of.  
That's quite a contrast with the three POs that served my hometown of 
50,000 when I was growing up.  I just know that sooner or later the 
US Postal Service is going to discover that it's "inefficient" to 
have so many post offices in tiny little towns, and shut a whole load 
of them down.  But I think it'll be a sad day; we get very good value 
for our money.  For the price of a small office and a part-time 
employee, we get a wonderful gathering places, and heaven knows we 
need more such centers of community.

Amy Z