The village post office is much more than a place dealing with the Royal Mail - it is also a shop and a gossiping place. Hence the concern of rural dwellers when a post office has to close.

Gossip has been described as "the small change of Dales life". Providing it does not become malicious, it is a useful way in which dalesfolk can update themselves about local people and events.

A sub-postmaster who gave what turned out to be a reliable forecast of the weather had said: "It's bahn to rain". This is a fairly safe bet during a Pennine summer, which tends to be cool and cloudy, though in his case the postmaster had noticed that a new sheet of stamps was beginning to curl.

We tend to take our postmen (and women) for granted. G K Chesterton, in one of his Father Brown stories, described how a detective kept watch on a block of flats for several hours.

He did not see anyone enter or leave - yet someone had been there. It was a postman, the most local, friendly and reliable aspect of officialdom and a man (or woman) we take for granted.

Postman Pat, the creation of John Cunliffe, was devised as a dalesman. He operated from the fictitious hamlet of Greendale with inspiration drawn from Longsleddale, in Old Westmorland.

This cheery little postman with Jess, a black and white cat, raised the profile of the rural postman and also introduced hosts of children to subsidiary characters, including Mrs Goggins, Ted Glen, the Rev Timms and Peter Fogg.

John Cunliffe got to know Longsleddale when he was a student teacher engaged in teaching practice at nearby Selside. When, some years ago, I asked him about his creation, he said that it was partly inspired by a film he had seen of the work of a country postman who, unlike many of his city colleagues, did rather more than collect and deliver mail. He performed lots of jobs for countryfolk, such as collective medical prescriptions.

The red vans of the Post Office are a familiar sight throughout The Dales, yet when I began my Dales wanderings, most of the rural postmen travelled on foot or by bike. They did so cheerfully, as though they really enjoyed their work. The vanborne postman who has remote farms on his rounds still has an athletic life, opening and closing gates that divide the big fields.

"Postie" could not dodge the home of the Browns at Cosh, one and a-half miles beyond the head of Littondale, because Mrs Brown, anxious to have some fresh topics of conversation, ordered a daily newspaper by post so she would have a regular visit from the postman.

Fred Falshaw, a postman in upper Wharfedale, told me that at one point he had to ford the river. If there was a spate, he would attach any mail to a stone and hurl it across. One time, he reached the bank to find the farmer waiting for him.

Fred attached a postcard to a stone, which landed at the farmer's feet, though the postcard fell into the river and was swept away. Said the farmer: "Nivver mind about it. What were on't?"

Tommy Brown, of Gunnerside, delivered letters to 45 lonely farms in Swaledale in all weathers for 45 years. It took him six hours to cover a round of 12 to 15 miles.

Jack Rukin, of Keld, included Tan Hill Inn on his round. He was the only regular contact the residents had with the outside world.

The Newall family recorded long years of service to the Post Office at Bolton Abbey. Roy Newall retired in 1958 after 40 years on the Storiths round. He recalled when a notable guest of the Duke of Devonshire at Bolton Abbey during the grouse-shooting season was George V.

The king arrived with a large retinue of servants. His mail was delivered to the back door of the big house, where it was received by a footman who handed it to the butler, who passed it on to the King. The postman was given a glass of beer.

A postman is rarely just that. As a daily visitor, he might help out with minor jobs. Mr Newall recalled assisting an old lady who could not bend down to fasten the buttons on her high boots. When the postman had handed over the letters, she handed him a button-hook.

The Dales postmen assumed heroic proportions in times of heavy snow, notably the winter of 1947, when on Malham Moor the postmen took turns, day after day, to walk the four miles from Langcliffe to the farmsteads.

Edith Carr recalls that the mail was frequently left at her home, Capon Hall, to await collection by neighbouring farmers. When a postman entered the kitchen in the early afternoon, he was a sorry sight, his outer clothes stiff with the cold and his eyebrows and hair covered with rime.

Mr Chaffers, short and stout, was determined that the snow would not stop His Majesty's mail from getting through. He arrived at the farm with great ceremony, puffing and blowing.

He would then unpeel his waterproof leggings and the brown paper and newspaper he had wrapped round his legs, securing the wrappings with thick, coarse string. He had great faith in his "thermal" wear and trundled for miles looking like a well-wrapped parcel.

Happily, in June, any problems about taking round the mail are not concerned with drifts of snow.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.