New post mistress urging community to support our Post Office

Hannah Watkins, new post mistress at Northgate Post Office

Hannah Watkins has officially taken over as post mistress at the town’s post office, located on Northgate, after nearly 20 years of working there.

Starting from just a part-time employee at the post office 18 years ago while her children were younger, Hannah gradually increased her hours over the years as her children grew up and said she loved it more and more, eventually taking on more responsibility and working her way up to assistant manager.

Then when the manager at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic semi-retired, and then sadly passed away in 2021, Hannah was given the opportunity to take temporary charge of the running of the branch – and then shortly after, the chance came up to buy the franchise of Louth’s post office, and she jumped at the chance.

Hannah Watkins, the new post mistress at Louth's Northgate Post Office. Photos: D.R.Dawson Photography

"Everyone knows me in the post office and it’s part of the community,” Hannah said, "I love the variety of people who come in and we’ve also got our regular customers who come in and we help pay their bills and banking and so on – the post office face is changing so much but there's still a demographic of people who need that face to face contact as not everyone uses online services.”

Louth’s post office now boasts longer opening hours, working from 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, and then 9am to 1pm on Saturdays.

The post office was reopened with balloons and a special day on Tuesday (October 17), and Hannah is now encouraging everyone to show their support for the service.

Recent reports show that thousands of post offices across the country have been struggling to stay open due to the rise in energy costs soar, with typical post office energy bills going up by 249 percent since last year.

"I want to get it out there that the post office is under new management and we’re trying to shake things up,” Hannah said, “We’re offering longer hours now to fit in better with people’s working lives and we want people to come and support us.

"A lot of post offices are struggling because a lot of people do everything online nowadays, and we need people to support their post office to keep it afloat.”