The Brief
A couple of weeks before Christmas 2024 I did a photo shoot for COURIER; the Royal Mail’s in-house quarterly publication. My photos would accompany an article covering the arrival of post on to the island during the busiest period of the year. This is the latest in a series of articles where COURIER looks at a day in the life of one of the UK’s posties. This was their first trip to the Outer Hebrides
Caroline the postie on the front cover – Winter 2025 edition of COURIER
An Early Start
Damon Parkin and Adam Correia-Whitehouse of Linney Creative, the company responsible for producing COURIER magazine, flew into Stornoway the day before. We met up at the sorting office in Stornoway at 6.30am to see the first delivery of post arrive via HGV. An hour later we were off to Stornoway Airport to watch another two and a half tonnes of post arrive on a Loganair freight flight.
STORNOWAY HANDLES THE THIRD HIGHEST NUMBER OF ITEMS PER POSTCODE IN THE UK
Sorted!
Plane emptied. Vans loaded. Back to the sorting office.
After a flurry of intense activity, the morning’s haul has been sorted by district and heads out on the road to be handed over to the 46 posties who deliver mail around the whole of Lewis and Harris.
The Road to Barvas
Damon, Adam and myself follow a bright red Royal Mail van out of Stornoway, across Barvas Moor to the Barvas & Brue Community Centre. This is where we meet up with Caroline; postie for the villages of Bragar, Arnol and Brue. Caroline kindly agreed to us accompanying her on the round.
Caroline’s favourite post box.
ROYAL MAIL’S STORM-PROOF JACKETS HAVE AN AVERAGE LIFESPAN OF THREE YEARS. HERE, POSTIES ARE LUCKY IF THEIR COATS LAST A FULL YEAR
Near ‘The Shieling’, overlooking Loch Bruthadal, near Arnol, Isle of Lewis.
Nosy Neighbours
Of course we stopped off at the famous Arnol Blackhouse…
The “White House” at Arnol. Atlantic Ocean in the background
At the End of the Day
Last delivery of the day takes place in the village of Brue. It’s 4pm and it’s dark already.
CAROLINE BELIEVES HER ROYAL MAIL ROUTE IS ONE OF THE UK’S MOST SCENIC
Post Script
Definitely one of my favourite photo jobs. It gave me the opportunity to take a series of photos that very much tied in with my ongoing WORK: Outer Hebrides project. It also taught me more about some of the people who live here and the stories they shared. Thanks to Damon and Adam from Linney Creative for giving me the job. They were a great team – Damon took care of the journalistic side of things (getting the story), Adam was art director – making sure I got the right kind of shots. Thanks also to all the posties and staff at Stornoway sorting office and especially to Caroline for being such a good sport in allowing us to tag along. A grand Hebridean day out!
The fact we ended up getting the cover of the magazine, in addition to the four page spread, was an added bonus.
COURIER is distributed to 150,000 Royal Mail employees, past and present.
