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Bring back the General Post Office

The Queen Street in Fort, Colombo is now a freeway sans shackles and barricades upto Prince Street. On Queen Street, easily the most beautiful remains, the old GPO in front of Queens House. I can say not only on Queen Street but the whole of Fort, there isn’t another majestic building.

Now the bomb culture and gun culture is a thing of the past, the General Post Office can be re-established in this building. I am a retired Postmaster in the 7th decade of my life. I served as a Postmaster only for 16-years and out of this almost 10 years was at the GPO down Queen Street. At GPO we had a service which very, very few countries in the whole world had. That was the Poste Restante Counter. The enquiries counter open 24 hours of the day. Poste’ Restante’, in French for resting at the post office. Tourists and sailors without fixed abode got their mail directed care of PR. On proving their identity with the passport they collected their mail profusely thanking the counter officer and often offered few foreign cigarettes as a token of friendship.

The GPO then not only housed the post office but several others of postal department, including PMG’s office, Account branch, Expenditure, Shroff’s and stamps branches too. In all these branches in 1960, the year I joined, the percentage of Tamil officials exceeded Sinhalese, but I could vehemently assure that there were no differences amongst us. We were all brothers in arms and helped each other like brothers.

The GPO Building is awe-inspiring not only for locals but to foreigners as well. I know that because at the PR counter I encountered people of so many nationalities and their comments on the building was most flattering. When it is painted in white as has been done always, the majesty and beauty is truly awe inspiring.

Now that Colombo is once again an open and peaceful city, bring back the General Post Office to this building.

S.R.M. Samarasinghe
Dehiwala

Flouting road rules

Pedestrians face a huge problem while using roads and pedestrian crossings. In rural areas there is no problem but in the city the situation is turning from bad to worse.

Most drivers are not bothered about traffic rules or regulations. We notice traffic police working hard even in adverse weather conditions, however, they need to be extra cautious to protect innocent lives, specially the lives of schoolchildren.

On- the- spot fines and punishment should be enforced on drivers flouting road rules. However, there are pedestrians who misuse the pedestrian crossing and can be seen jay walking without using the pedestrian crossing.

S. Aravinda Nathan
Mount Lavinia