Posties Get Ready For Christmas

18 December 2012, 06:00 | Updated: 18 December 2012, 12:30

Right now's one of the busiest times of the year for Royal Mail postal workers as they try to get letters, packets and parcels delivered in time for Christmas.

To recognise how hard postmen work at this time of year, the Communication Workers Union named Monday 17 December 2012 as the first ever National Postal Workers Day.

They say this is a time for the public to show their appreciation to their postie.

To see how busy postmen are in Milton Keynes Heart's reporter went out on the rounds with a postman in Bletchley.

Pat Sivyer has been a postman for 28 years.  By now he says he's quite used to the busy Christmas period but says it's not the same as it used to be.

With more people shopping online he says he now has to handle a lot more packets and parcels then he used to.

"The volume of letters has gone down with Royal Mail over the years but packets have just gone mega mega especially with online Ebay, Amazon, that sort of stuff."

Pat's rounds are made a bit easier with the help of a new trolley to push the mail around in rather than carrying it.

You can see photos of Pat on his rounds below.