peter
1/3
“I was a postman for 40 years, and I did an exam to become a telegraph messenger when I was 16. It was right before machines took over really. And a telegraph was a gadget that, if you were in America and you wanted to send a message to Dublin, you’d press buttons on one side and it printed the message out in the paper in Dublin. One of these machines was in the GPO. They’d put the messages into green envelopes, and the messengers would wait for a bunch of them, and then we’d deliver them to your door. These messages often contained news about death, but also, you could send money. It was in the 60’s, not long after the war, and there were no jobs in Ireland, so a lot of men traveled to America for work, and sent money back home. I was the guy on the motorbike flying around Dublin with the most important messages in my hand, and I was the man who handed them to mothers of six children. I saw those emotions, and the light on their faces, that finally they will able to buy food. And to be the part of that joy made me really love my job.”