This has now happened. With ever later deliveries – due, to some extent, to the postmen not being allowed to start their rounds until after 9am – the squeeze is really on.
The opportunity to answer a letter and have that answer leave in a collection on the same day is dwindling.
Some 25 years ago I served on the Post Office Users' Council and Advisory Committee and the issues seem trivial compared with the degradation of customer service levels which has happened since, and which would have been unthinkable then.
I don't blame the staff; they are trying to do their best. Rather it is the policy-makers at Royal Mail who have lost the plot. As soon a service organisation turns its back on customer considerations, the game is up.
Neil Inkley, address supplied

Time to improve the teaching standard
Bad teaching is the guilty secret of our education system. Politicians pretend that all will be well for millions of under-performing children if they build more spanking new academies with a laptop for every pupil. But it's not the buildings, it's the teachers.
Rude, barely-socialised pupils, feeble sanctions against bad behaviour and appalling stress have driven thousands of gifted men and women out of the classroom.
Too often they have been replaced by recruits with poor qualifications, yet it's almost impossible to sack a teacher these days.
So, praise be for Christine Gilbert, chief inspector of schools, who has called for heads to be able to get rid of weak staff.
Darryl Ashton, address supplied

Save banks, as long as they learn
I have followed the debate in your pages about the rights and wrongs of governmennts baling out banks on the verge of collapse with taxpayers' money.
To be honest, I can see both sides. Rescuing bankers from their own recklessness doesn't really appeal to me either.
But the notion that so many of them should be allowed to go under because that's all part of operating in the market place, scares me.
Who says the global economy can withstand the insolvency of large parts of the financial system? At the very least it is a huge gamble, and if it failed you can bet that the people who would be most hurt by the meltdown would be the poorest in society.
Reluctantly I have to concede that the governments of America and Britain are doing the right thing in trying to minimise the effects of the crisis.
The lessons must be learned, however.
John Cardwell, via email

No need for Darwin family apology
What's with this current Archbishop of Canterbury for making an apology to Charles Darwin's family for alleged vilification of his theory of evolution?
Has the Church of England nothing better to do than make useless gestures to previous generations?
Shall we demand apologies from the Romans, Vikings, Saxons and Normans for invading Britain?
This apology makes the Archbishop look gormless. Why should he say sorry to the man who has done more to undermine Christian faith than any other person in the last 2,000 years?
Bill Mason, address supplied