A day in the life of a postal investigator

Well here we go again, third time lucky I’m told, see if I can avoid hitting, or not hitting the right or wrong key as the case may be.

This story is set in a time long long ago, and just before Christmas, I was doing my usual job, you know protecting the posting public of Australia, if not the world[or that part of it that used the services of Australia post] from the evil actions of criminals unknown, in this case, those who played around with letter bombs, nasty people all round, Queensland had just witnessed one such act fairly recently, with a bomb being sent to our Premier Joe, so all persons were understandably edgy, the air lines were particularly jumpy ,because they were the carriers of mail from centre to centre within the mail network of the country, the Railways carried lots of mail too, but I suppose because they didn't have as far to fall as airplanes if things went wrong, they weren't as prone to worry as much, I digress get on with the main yarn.

There was I just twiddling my thumbs waiting for the knock off whistle to sound, instead the phone on my trusty desk shrilled, Was it my boss in Brisbane checking up on me? He sometimes did things like that, particularly on Fridays, but this wasn't Friday, or it hadn't been earlier ,in the day, I answered the call, easiest way to stop that shrill noise, to find Vic on the other end, Vic was the Supervisor of our Mail Exchange in Townsville, a quiet cautious man was Vic slow and easy, nothing hurried about Vic, a typical North Queenslander, born and bred in Townsville, been with the Post Office all his working life, His message? Went something like this, just had a call from-----no name [have to protect the innocent] one of the Airlines serving Townsville, telling me that they had a mail bag there that was making funny noises would I come and pick it up as they didn't want it, Vic knew mail bags weren't supposed to make funny noises, as well as I, so he said yes, But being a cautious man, and knowing that I was supposed to deal with unusual happenings in the mail system, naturally invited me to come along, besides I had the transport and he would have had to ring for a taxi, and then have to go into a long explanation as to why he wanted a taxi to take him to the airport, but getting money out of petty cash to pay for taxi's would have been time consuming and probably unsuccessful, so my invitation.

When we arrived at the airport, we were directed to a quiet secluded area of nicely mowed grass devoid of all other things, except a mail bag, now Vic had briefed me about the funny noises story and the planes' pilot not wanting want anything to do with it and the baggage handlers not wanting it either, so I knew we had a mailbag that made funny noises, but what to do with it. I had run my boss in Brisbane, before setting out, best to let the Boss know what was going on, in case the funny noise proved interesting, and as mobile phones had not yet been invented, I would have been out of touch to any one further than shouting distance away, I had seen the war time pictures of bomb disposal as a kid, and probably later because the vision of being splattered all over the landscape was very vivid in my mind, but being feeble minded ,or having a death wish, or more likely completely unthinking at the time, anyway Vic and I just looked at the innocent mail bag, I circled it, but it made no move to keep me in sight, so it was either playing doggo, or waiting for us to make the first move, Vic and I discussed the matter, and we decided that I should open it, at least I opened the bag so I must have voted that I should, otherwise why would I be cutting the string closing the bag?

After cutting the string[string you may well ask, but that is what the post office used to secure the mail bags with, a length of string about 12 inches long tied around the neck of the bag and a lead slipped over both loose ends up to the knot and then cramped shut with a tool lie a pair of pliers which imparted the post office identity which dispatched that bag, simple but it had worked successfully for---- oh yonks, now I thing they transport the mail in open baskets, but the post office now have their own trucks, on all the main routes anyway, don't know what applies at other places, any to get back to this noisy bag, grabbing it by the bottom corners, a lift an a shake emptied the mail onto the ground, no earth shattering bang occurred, so a slow exhale of breath by Vic [ I presume ] and defiantly by me, left us with a pile of packets of assorted sizes and shapes, to look at, nothing untoward to see, no waving flags saying bomb here, nothing, that is until muggings nudged the pile and one of the packets emitted a wisp of smoke and a rattling sound, well after I came back to earth some feet away, and Vic also maybe even further, checked myself over, found all parts intact and no untoward emissions from the nether parts, reached for a smoke and asked Vic if he was OK, got a chocked sort of grunt from him Vic didn't smoke, I don't think it was because of any cancer advertising, just hadn't acquired the habit, and as the smoking packet seemed content to just scare the living daylights out of us, I thought it would be safe to go a bit closer, so advancing 10 or 12 feet in is direction [a Springbok would have been proud of my exit leap from a cold stand ] saw that packet just laying there practically grinning, so I carefully nudged it to one side of the pile, and after conferring with Vic, we decided to reload all the remainder of the packets back into the bag and Vic could reseal the bag and take it back to his work place and send it on is way later

Now this Offender, what to do, it had remained quietly to one side while we restored the other mail to it rightful place, not that we were giving it any excuse to take offence, at least we now had an opportunity to examine it more closely we saw a return senders address, unlikely to be a criminal I thought, so what was the story, Hand the Offender over o the Commonwealth Police, who looked after trouble within the airport, I had read about a case of what turned out to be mangoes left in the airport and left unclaimed, and handed over to them as a suspicious parcel, things were really serious then, probably as much as today] That box was lined up and blasted with a shotgun charge of buckshot, very messy outcome. Should I subject this parcel to a similar fate?

My better nature got the better of me, and as it was getting near Christmas, I elected to grant it a reprieve , for the time being any way, seeing the return address was a caravan park in Ayr, about 60miles away, and about an hour’s drive even for a lead footed driver like me I though why not give the Post Master at Ayr a Chance to join the party, and get him to check out the addressee and get their OK to open the parcel and see what caused the smoke and rattle, if things were still dodgy I always had the Army to fall back on, they were good at blowing up parcels for me but that is another story]

Well the PM when acquainted with the facts, as far as they concerned him, agreed to go and see the person concerned, it was a good excuse to get out of the office and take a run out to see the person, and to call be back, in the mean time I still had potential bomb, that nobody wanted, I didn't even want the thing, so thinking it hadn't actually blown up yet it would probably be OK in my car, O foolish boy but I hadn’t been on those explosive courses at that time and notwithstanding my recollections of bomb disposal movies where the hero usually lived to tell the tale, elected to put it on the backseat, not in the boot where it would have been contained and go off with a louder bang, so I arranged to go back with Vic, he didn't have a car any way and it was along walk with a sack of mail, I’ve generously consented to park my car in an out of the way in the mail exchange yard, until we heard back from the Post Master.

Well the PM phoned back with the news that the packet was a Christmas present for the senders grandson, and was a battery operated Toy Smoking Motorbike, which when we carefully opened the packet, that is what we found, and repacked the article less the batteries, and sent it on its merry way

God save the good ship lolly pop and all who sail in her

Managed to get this far and still have the story, not properly spell checked, but near enough