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  ‘And is there any risk of us losing our category A status?’ asked Sue.

  ‘None whatsoever,’ said Chris, ‘or that’s what the area manager assured me, and he’s a fellow member of Rotary. He told me that the matter has never even come up for discussion at headquarters, and you can be pretty confident that Britannia will also have checked that out long before they would be willing to part with a hundred thousand.’

  ‘So you still think we should go ahead?’

  ‘With a few refinements to their terms,’ said Chris.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, to start with, I’ve no doubt that Mr Tremaine will come down to eight per cent, now that the High Street banks have also begun investing in business ventures, and don’t forget, this time he will have a charge over the property.’

  The Haskins sold their fish-and-chip shop for £112,000 and were able to add a further £38,000 from their credit account. Britannia topped it up with a loan of £100,000 at 8 per cent. A cheque for £250,000 was sent to Post Office headquarters in London.

  ‘Time to celebrate,’ declared Chris.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ asked Sue. ‘Because we can’t afford to spend any more money.’

  ‘Let’s drive down to Ashford and spend the weekend with our daughter –’ he paused – ‘and on the way back . . .’

  ‘And on the way back?’ repeated Sue.

  ‘Let’s drop into Battersea Dogs’ Home.’

  A month later, Mr and Mrs Haskins and Stamps, another Labrador, this time black, moved from their fish-and-chip shop on Beach Street to a category A post office in Victoria Crescent.

  Chris and Sue quickly returned to working hours that they hadn’t experienced since they first opened the fish-and-chip shop. For the next five years they cut down on any little extras, and even went without holidays, although they often thought about another trip to Portugal, but that had to be put on hold until they completed their quarterly payments to Britannia. Chris continued to carry out his Rotary Club duties, while Sue became chairman of the Cleethorpes branch of the Mothers’ Union. Tracey was promoted to sites manager, and Stamps ate more food than the three of them put together.

  In their fourth year, Mr and Mrs Haskins won the ‘Area Post Office of the Year’ award, and nine months later paid off the final instalment to Britannia.

  The board of Britannia invited Chris and Sue to join them for lunch at the Royal Hotel to celebrate the fact that they now owned the post office without a penny of debt to their name.

  ‘We still have to earn back our original investment,’ Chris reminded them. ‘A mere matter of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’

  ‘If you keep going at your present rate,’ suggested the chairman of Britannia, ‘it should only take you another five years to achieve and then you could be sitting on a business worth over a million.’

  ‘Does that mean I’m a millionaire?’ asked Chris.

  ‘No, it does not,’ butted in Sue. ‘Our current account is showing a credit of a little over ten thousand pounds. You’re a ten thousandaire.’

  The chairman laughed, and invited the board to raise their glasses to Chris and Sue Haskins.

  ‘My spies tell me, Chris,’ added the chairman, ‘that you are likely to be the next president of our local Rotary.’

  ‘Many a slip,’ said Chris as he lowered his glass, ‘and certainly not before Sue takes her place on the area committee of the Mothers’ Union. Don’t be surprised if she ends up as national chairman,’ he added, with considerable pride.

  ‘So what do you plan to do next?’ asked the chairman.

  ‘Take a month’s holiday in Portugal,’ said Chris without hesitation. ‘After five years of having to make do with the beach at Cleethorpes and a plate of fish and chips, I think we’ve earned it.’

  That also would have made a satisfactory conclusion to this tale, had officialdom not stepped in once again; this time with a letter addressed to Mr and Mrs Hoskins from the finance director of the Post Office. They found it waiting for them on the mat when they returned from Albufeira.

  Post Office Headquarters,

  148 Old Street, London EC1V 9HQ

  Dear Mr and Mrs Hoskins,

  The Post Office is in the process of re-evaluating its property portfolio, and to that end, will be making some changes to the status of some of its older establishments.

  I therefore have to inform you that the board has come to the reluctant conclusion that we will no longer require two category A status facilities in the Cleethorpes area. While the new High Street branch will continue as a category A post office, Victoria Crescent will be downgraded to category B. In order that you can make the necessary adjustments, we do not propose to bring in these changes until the New Year.

  We look forward to continuing our relationship with you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Finance Director

  ‘Does that mean what I think it means?’ said Sue after she had read the letter a second time.

  ‘In simple terms, love,’ said Chris, ‘we can never hope to earn back our original investment of two hundred and fifty thousand, even if we go on working for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to put the post office up for sale.’

  ‘But who will want to buy it at that price,’ asked Chris, ‘once they discover that the business no longer has category A status?’

  ‘The man from Britannia assured us that once we’d paid off the debt it would be worth a million.’

  ‘Only while the business has a turnover of five hundred thousand and generates a profit of around eighty thousand a year,’ said Chris.

  ‘We should take legal advice.’

  Chris reluctantly agreed, although he wasn’t in much doubt what his solicitor’s opinion would be. The law, their advocate dutifully advised them, was not on their side, and therefore he wouldn’t recommend them to sue the Post Office, as he couldn’t guarantee the outcome. ‘You might well win a moral victory,’ he said, ‘but that won’t assist your bank balance.’

  The next decision Chris and Sue made was to put the post office on the market as they wanted to find out if anyone would show an interest. Once again Chris’s judgement turned out to be correct: only three couples even bothered to look over the property, and none of them returned for a second viewing once they discovered it was no longer category A status.

  ‘My bet,’ said Sue, ‘is that those officials back at headquarters knew only too well they were going to change our status long before they pocketed our money, but it suited them not to tell us.’

  ‘You may well be right,’ said Chris, ‘but you can be sure of one thing – they won’t have put anything in writing at the time, so we would never be able to prove it.’

  ‘And neither did we.’

  ‘What are you getting at, love?’

  ‘How much have they stolen from us?’ demanded Sue.

  ‘Well, if by that you mean our original investment—’

  ‘Our life savings, every penny we’ve earned over the past thirty years, not to mention our pension.’

  Chris paused and raised his head, while he made some calculations. ‘Not including any profit we might have hoped for, once we’d seen our capital returned—’

  ‘Yes, only what they’ve stolen from us,’ Sue repeated.

  ‘A little over two hundred and fifty thousand, if you don’t include interest,’ said Chris.

  ‘And we have no hope of seeing a penny of that original investment back, even if we were to work for the rest of our lives?’

  ‘That’s about the sum of it, love.’

  ‘Then it’s my intention to retire on January the first.’

  ‘And what are you expecting to live off for the rest of your life?’ asked Chris.

  ‘Our original investment.’

  ‘And how do you intend to go about that?’

  ‘By taking advantage of our spotless reputation.’

  The End

  Chris and S