The Warnford Village Shop and Post Office stood next to The George Inn (now The George & Falcon) on the A32 and has for many years been a private house. In 1975 the Post Office embarked on a rationalisation of its estate and took advantage of a change of ownership to close the counter at Warnford. I decided that this was a decision worth challenging and undertook a village-wide survey to take the local temperature. As the following article reports, 51 of 56 households described the loss as at least 'mildly inconvenient'. Faced with such ferocious (?!) opposition, the Post Office relented and in 1976, the counter was reopened.
Most unexpectedly (and for all sorts of reasons) reopening the Post Office required me to serve as Sub-Postmaster for Warnford with the shop owner acting as my assistant! I don't recall the concerns expressed in the artice about the decision to close the Public Bar at The George Inn but I am pretty certain that had a petition been raised it would have carried the day!
The further article below is quite amusing. I am struck by the 'bad loser' tone of the comments from the Post Office higher-ups!
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