Royal Mail bosses have suggested to postmen that they should not accept a Christmas tip if it’s £30 or more. This is because under the terms of the new Bribery Act that sort of money could conceivably constitute a bribe. I’ve never been a postman, sadly, let alone a postman at Christmas. I don’t know how much a postman expects to make from Christmas tips. But I was seven years a dustman and for us Christmas was always a cash bonanza of mind-boggling proportions. I have lots of happy memories of stepping down from the dustcart on Christmas Eve, already tight as a tick, and heading straight for the pub, my trouser pockets bulging with wedges of cash several inches thick.
It wasn’t just cash we were given. Every evening in the fortnight leading up to Christmas I’d be going home with bottles of wine, half-bottles of vodka, boxes of chocolates, cakes, biscuits, sweets, assorted knitwear, socks, pocket diaries, scenic calendars and, after a day collecting rubbish from the remoter districts, string bags of turnips.
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