WE have been grateful to you and the staff of the Evening Courier for the extensive cover you have given in recent months to the local campaign to save our Post Office at Greetland (West Vale).

We would welcome the chance through your letters page to say a few words to the many people who tried to make a difference.

On September 3, 1998 I became the postmaster at Greetland (West Vale) Post Office and began the single most satisfying and rewarding job of work I have ever done in my life, not least because my wife Sue and I have had the rare and rewarding opportunity to work together in a job we have both loved.

On August 21 2008, almost 10 years to the day on which our family moved into our premises in Saddleworth Road, we closed our doors for the last time and the Post Office service to the local community came to its enforced end.

I do not intend to provoke further debate about the rights and wrongs of the decision to close our Post Office, merely to acknowledge our acceptance of that decision and our need to move forward.

However, we cannot move on without a few final words to those people we have known as our customers, our friends and even our extended family, to say how truly sorry we are for the loss to you of our service.
It is a service which has placed us, with others, at the heart of your community for 10 wonderful years and it has been our privilege and and pleasure to serve you.

To each and every person who protested in every conceivable way about the proposed closure, we thank you.

Most particularly we thank Mr Peter Broadley for his personal intervention, his leadership, and his most articulate and passionate campaigning, a man whose representation of the views and opinions of so many local people was worthy of any local councillor. Although it is true that the campaign to save our Post Office was not successful, we do find comfort and joy in the knowledge that for a brief time this community was united in its efforts.

Perhaps on this occasion we really were fighting for a "People's Post Office."

May I close with a borrowed reference from a card given recently to a friend of my wife on the occasion of her retirement?

The note inside said: "Do not be sad it ended. Be glad it happened."
Well, Sue and I are sad, but we are glad to have met, to have known and to have served each and every person who crossed the threshold of Greetland Post Office during the past 10 years.

We can only add that our service was no service without you there to serve.

Thank you and God bless you all.

Brian and Sue Harrison