Whangārei rural postie Lynette Taylor retires after nearly 40 years with NZ Post

She's "delivered smiles, Kiwi style" for nearly 40 years, but Kamo rural delivery postie Lynette Taylor is finally waving goodbye to the job. Photo / Sarah Curtis

When Springs Flat postal worker Lynette Taylor first took on a rural mail run on the outskirts of Whangārei nearly 30 years ago, the parcels could fit in a wheelbarrow.

Back then, she had just 330 customers and her run that covered a large area around Springs Flat, Te Kamo, was “a bit of a doddle”, Taylor recalled.

She only needed to upgrade the size of her early work vehicle - from a family-sized station wagon to a larger van - because she’d decided to subsidise her post office earnings by also delivering 44-gallon drums of cowshed chemicals.

But how times changed. Thirty years later her customer-base has trebled to 1000 as the Northern Te Kamo area she serviced became increasingly residential. Developments such as Karanui rural lifestyle subdivision, north-west of Te Kamo, alone added an extra hour’s work to her day.

For 12 years, her run also included rolling up and delivering 300 newspapers daily, meaning statutory holiday work was required.

Despite those increasing demands, Taylor, 60, said she always loved the job - “because of the people”.

A people-person through and through, she was well-suited to a public-facing role with the mail service from the moment she started at the Hikurangi Post Office, in December, 1984.

Back then, NZ Post still operated banking services and most posties rode bikes.

Telegrams were still a thing, albeit nearing their technological end. In fact, one of the last telegrams ever sent was to Taylor on her wedding day.

Now - just two months shy of completing 40 years of service with New Zealand Post - Taylor’s finally decided to wave goodbye to the job that nowadays couldn’t be done with anything smaller than a van and often kept her out delivering parcels into the night.

The huge workload’s been tough, especially since NZ Post cut Saturdays from the delivery schedule, she said.

Taylor’s up each morning at 4.20am and on the road by 5am. She hasn’t had a holiday for 28.5 years, only one sick day in that time, and occasionally a few hours off work for funerals.

Increased parcel numbers have made the job more physically demanding so Taylor has treated herself to fortnightly massages.

The hike in parcel mail began with the advent of online trading and businesses supplying boxed dinner kits. However, it was Covid-19 that suddenly escalated that upsurge, especially with people ordering boxes of alcohol.

“Covid-19 nailed us, that really, really, nailed us, I wasn’t keeping up. I was four days behind in my work most of the time and (after her 5am start) was finishing at half past nine at night.”

Te Kamo rural delivery postie Lynette Taylor is putting her long career in the mail service behind her. Photo / Sarah Curtis

Out on the road as a rural postie, she earned widespread love and respect from customers, taking the time to talk with and become close to many of them.

She’s followed their family births and deaths, paid bills for people while they’ve been overseas, chased burglars, helped catch horses, and rounded up cattle. She’s been invited into people’s houses, offered jobs, and given gifts.

She’s also given gifts - homemade quilts and specially formulated healing balms. Taylor says she likes to heal people.

“I was the only point of contact,” for some people. Taylor recalled an old man who always waited by his letterbox for her.

Sadly, there came a day when his relative phoned to say the man wouldn’t be there anymore - he had died.

“Once a woman left a roast pork for me and apologised profusely for having no apple sauce to put with it - she would’ve given me the shirt off her back.”

Born and raised in the Springs Flat area, which her forbears settled in 1875 - Taylor said her knowledge of local families and the nooks and crannies of the district’s geography helped in her role. Even in horrendous weather events like the floods which seemed to happen every seven years, she always knew a back road that she could take to ensure the mail still got through.

One of Taylor’s favourite spots in her territory is Riponui, west of Hikurangi, where she learnt to drive as a teenager.

“So yeah, Riponui’s dear to my heart.”

When floodwaters wiped out an accessway to her Springs Flat property, it was three of her customers who helped her build a new one.

Taylor said she would miss her customers but looked forward to newfound freedom and flexibility. She’d also have more time at home for her ever-increasing array of chickens, her rose bushes, and her handmade healing balms.

She still had a lot to give and planned on doing volunteer and some paid work. She hoped this would include car rally marshalling, helping at Waipū’s highland games, and perhaps driving for the elderly.

Taylor was glad to be leaving NZ Post before proposed national changes to its rural mail service, which she felt would adversely affect customers and contractors.

Her last day at work was last Friday.

Taylor’s legacy as a key part of the local community’s history is being celebrated later this month with a function at the Kaurihohore Hall, organised by some of her customer friends.

Long-standing customer Chris Finlayson said Taylor would be missed.

“She’s more than a postie, for 28 years she’s been looking out for us”.

Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, much of which she spent court reporting. She is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.