There is a well-known quote that ‘there’s something about Mary’, and never was it more truly said than when describing Mary Dainton, known as ‘Mary the Post’, the much-loved lady who has been delivering mail in East Markham for the last 38 years.
Mary started working for Royal Mail in 1986. One year later she was given the East Markham round, where she delivered until 31st May this year when she finally hung up her van keys and embarked on a very well-deserved retirement. Her van looked more like a florist’s vehicle on her final day and she will be sorely missed.
There are many stories of a life spent on her rounds, with the perils of getting stuck on such a rural route and having to be dug out of snow drifts and more recently coping with the mayhem caused by the likes of Storm Babet. Others hint at why Mary has been taken to the hearts of the people on her round.
While delivering the mail to a house owned by two ladies, Mary was hailed from an upstairs window to come upstairs to enable their escape from a bedroom where they had accidentally locked themselves in after removing a door handle. Mary’s quick thinking also helped foil a burglary.
Over the years, Mary has reunited escaped dogs with their owners, helped with rounding up sheep, been bug hunting with small children and had many more adventures too numerous to list. She often comes back to the village to support events and one year was enormously pleased to be asked to judge the best float in the May Day Procession.
Mary has been part of Markham Players for many years and plans to continue her involvement.
Unexpectedly for her, she saw around 500 long-standing friends and people from her round at a very special surprise send-off get together in East Markham Village Hall on 7th June organised by her friends from The Players. The conspirators delivered a note to every house in the village telling people about this celebration and inviting them to come along. The fact that so very many of them did so speaks volumes about the affection they feel for Mary.
Collection points for a joint gift from the village were set up and photos were collected. So many village residents and organisations were involved and a table by the door groaned under the weight of cards and individual gifts. Bob Gale from Markham Players was delegated to speak for them all, saying how important Mary is to everyone. He read out details of the gifts collected for her. The Players had gathered over 4,500 photos of their events and compiled a set of photobooks depicting different years. Amusingly the parcel containing them was delayed in the post, only arriving on the morning of the party. The collections of donations had been pooled and a visibly moved Mary was presented with a cheque for £1,838.