Cormac MacConnell: The country postman is a social worker too

The four-day dispute in the postal service last week, which kept our mailboxes safe for the local spiders, shocked me more than a little.

That is because I fear for the future of our country postmen.

Are their days almost numbered? Has their fate been stamped already by the unelected but extremely powerful bureaucrats who, in the final analysis, are the ones who truly rule us today?