Home > Susan Hill

Friday 10 February 2012

Politically Incorrect, Humanly Delightful

Tuesday, 15th December 2009

This being heavy posting time and the main offices having queues a mile long, at the moment I go to a village 6 miles away where they still have a Post Office with lots of parking space right outside. Although they do steady business, there is never a queue.

It is the usual village PO cum shop that sells everything and it run by a Sikh family... an older couple, their son, his wife and her brother, plus a baby who is often to be seen being carried round among the custard powder and tinned soups by a doting grandmother. Grandfather is a traditional Sikh –long beard and turban – but his son does not wear either and his English, with a strong Black Country accent, is the same as yours or mine. When the rest of the family are around he switches between this and their own language seamlessly. His wife’s English is a bit less confident, that of the grandparents poor. But grandfather has learned enough to serve in the shop and he has also decided that not only should you be friendly with customers but that, if you call them ‘Love’ and ‘Dear’ and ‘My Darling’ and ‘Sweetheart’, at random, this adds to the general atmosphere of good will.

Or it did until very recently when someone complained – not directly to the shop, of course, such people never do anything so open and honest. No, the complaint went to the District Head Post Master – though grandfather never sets foot among the stamps and postal orders, let alone serves there. ‘Over familiarity with female customers’ was one of the phrases used, so the story goes.

It is a very traditional village and the Sikh family are the only such for a long distance, nor are there any other people of different racial origins living there. But the people at the Post Office Stores are very well liked and fully integrated and the entire community has got behind them in a way that has touched them greatly. Letters of support have been written, friendly words have passed across counters and nobody can say enough good about them and bad about whatever idiot wrote to complain. I wouldn’t like to be them if they ever showed a face inside the shop – not on account of the anger of the owners but of the other customers. There is not an iota of truth in the accusation against grandfather. He is the soul of politeness and good behaviour – he just likes to call people the sort of affectionate names which every shop assistant and bus conductor in Yorkshire uses the entire time to all and sundry, as part of normal life.

When I took a load of parcels in today, the younger woman was wearing a Santa hat, which looked odd above a shalwar khamiz - though in a good way. She served me with my newspaper after I had done the parcel posting. ‘Love the hat’ I said. She looked rueful... ‘I know. But we like to celebrate all the festivals of our customers.’

To which end they also have a crib in the window. Tell the PC racial equality enforcement lot to put that in their pipes and smoke it.

Previous Back to Susan Hill Next

Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (11)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

Andre

December 15th, 2009 7:56am Report this comment

Lovely story - I am put in mind of the Ed Stewart jingle 'Ello darlin'

Sarah

December 15th, 2009 9:04am Report this comment

'Ello darling' etc etc *can* be sexist - it depends on the context. But I agree that it's perfectly normal for shopkeepers to use terms of endearment to customers. This isn't a terribly gendered practice either - women will sometimes call men 'dear' or 'duck' or whatever. In the North men even call each other 'love' I think. My own local (Muslim) shopkeeper calls me 'dear' or 'darling' and I don't mind at all even though I'd certainly call myself a feminist. My favourite shopkeeper is my butcher though who affects to believe my daughter is my sister and says things like '£22 - same as your age'.

James Strong

December 15th, 2009 11:57am Report this comment

Sikhs.Most welcome.(Generally,threatening that theatre was an exception,I hope.)

Not so mohammedans.
And not for racial reasons;the problems are religious and cultural.

wrinkled weasel

December 15th, 2009 12:23pm Report this comment

Someone with a grudge maybe? Somebody with little better to do? The writer of the complaint belongs to a growing number of little people, not all anonymous, who are so insecure and who are so aware of their insignificance in society that they need to lash out at others. In the last decade they have been gifted Political Correctness. This together with a growing and credulous cadre of liberal-leaning public employees has produced an atmosphere of scapegoating and retribution that is far worse than the perceived wrongs the mechanism is supposed to address.

I know your Post Office. It is just like mine.

Happy Christmas, Duck.

SUSAN HILL

December 15th, 2009 2:13pm Report this comment

Wrinkled Weasel.
Thanks Chuck, and a Happy Christmas to you.

Anne Wotana Kaye

December 15th, 2009 3:25pm Report this comment

Your village sounds nice. I always knew that the rascists in this country are the PC brigade, it is a cottage industry for them, they earn their daily bread digging for crumbs of nonsense. I wish you - and your village, with the post office shop staff a very happy Christmas.

Peter

December 15th, 2009 3:29pm Report this comment

Superb and heartening.

A few years ago I found myself travelling through deepest Gujarat in the final days of December with a British Muslim family whose little ones were all singing 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer' with gusto. Incongruous in the sweltering heat and light, and all the more delightful for it. In the queues at Heathrow a day or so previously there had been many small Indian children resplendent in Father Christmas hats.

There is a lot of charm, warmth and humanity to be found in the interactions between the different people who have made England their home as your story amply proves.

Far, far more than will ever appear in the comments section here, sadly.

dearieme

December 15th, 2009 6:03pm Report this comment

Right enough, hen.

Austin Barry

December 16th, 2009 7:47am Report this comment

With the exception of the mad complainant your village seems to reflect 1950s/1960s values - generally everyone rubs along.

Unhappily, looming over our landscape is an expressionless moronic face which gleefully anticipates the shredded flesh of its fellow citizens: its sullen slogan is: don't mess with the Muslims, innit.

hadrian

December 16th, 2009 11:33pm Report this comment

Hinestly- these PC types get on my wick, they are just so humourless!
It reminds me, a Scotsman, of the hilarious fact that in Germany anything that is cheap or bargain basement is apparently dubbed 'Schottenfrei' (Scot-free) in honour of the rumour we Scots are a mean, canny, tight-fisted lot, thriftily counting very last one of the baw-bees! Seems our miserable Scottish Parliament- or a section in it- take exception to this supposed slur and want the Germans to mind their tongues and coin ( if you'll excuse the pun!) a different expression. Did you ever? Meanwhile they let murderers, rapists, drunk drivers, etc off...well, scot-free.
But that's PC for you- no proper sense of due importance at all.