Britain’s longest-serving Royal Mail postman began hand-delivering presents when he was just 16 – and has shared the most unique ones he’s handled over the years.
Robert ‘Rocky’ Hudson, 76, has handled countless parcels after beginning his career in December 1964 in Leyton, east London.
Rocky started as a messenger in the Whitechapel delivery office, delivering telegrams on a motorcycle. Then, in proper Father Christmas style, he changed to delivering parcels from a sack on his back in Poplar.
This year, he will log his last shift on December 28 after working nights for the past 40 years – which made it easier to care for his three young children following the sudden death of his wife, Sheila, at age 26, in 1980.
Reflecting on his Christmas deliveries, he said: ‘At Christmas, you used to get turkeys coming through wrapped up in brown paper or a cloth with a leg sticking out the bottom and you had to take that round to someone’s house.
‘You used to get salmon which had to go out, cream from Cornwall, Norfolk kippers. They were marked up as perishable and they had to go – you had a commitment and it had to go that day.’
Rocky also said he loved delivering last-minute Christmas gifts to those in the area he covered: ‘It was fun, all the presents wrapped up. It’s nice to knock on the door and see someone’s smiling face.’
He says retirement will be ‘strange’, but he’s ready to relax and spend more time with his family, including his granddaughter British Paralympic archer Jessica Stretton.
Rocky said: ‘I’m the longest-serving union member, the longest-serving postman in England and I loved every minute of it. We often wear Santa hats and go around at Christmas, seeing the look on the kids’ faces when you’re at the door is so nice.
‘People used to say, ‘here comes Father Christmas’. The amount of work we get around Christmas is incredible, it’s so busy, but you push through and get it done – there’s nothing left behind.’
In 1964, Rocky said sometimes the only way of communicating with someone was to send telegrams, carrying messages ranging from congratulations to death notices.
‘I’d deliver quite a lot, most of it was information, ‘contact me as soon as possible’, that sort of thing,’ he said.
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‘You had to get through it whatever the weather, you were committed to it. The priority and urgent ones, they had to go out and it didn’t matter it if was snowing, you had to deliver those ones.’
Rocky worked night shifts for four decades after his wife passed away from a brain haemorrhage, so working nights was the ‘only way to get around it’.
He said: ‘I didn’t start until midnight so I could be there with them right up until then, get them in bed, tuck them in, shoot off to work, come home again at 7 am in the morning and get them up to go to school. It worked out absolutely perfectly.’
Rocky also met the King when he was the then-Prince of Wales after he completed 50 years of service with Royal Mail, getting a chance to ‘shake hands and have a chat’.
To mark 60 years and the end of his service, Rocky and his colleagues celebrated his retirement party at the Docklands delivery office on December 7 – the date he first started in 1964.
As for his retirement, Rocky said: ‘The first thing I’m going to do is turn all my alarms off. I’ll finish building my shed down the garden and do some maintenance things.’
His last official day at Royal Mail on December 28 will be ‘strange’, but it is an achievement he is proud of.
In his advice to his fellow postmen, he added: ‘Keep up the good work, stick with it and enjoy it.’
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