Forget waiting in for the postman or trudging to the parcel office.
Women in stilettos are gabbing in front of the former parcel office where prisoners used to collect their mail.
I may have been a trainee yokel reporter with straw in my hair but I knew I was the only person in on the act in all of cuddly cut-off Hereford, because I would walk each lunch-hour to the railway station to collect from the parcel office, direct from that morning's Manchester train, the day-before's Manchester Guardian.
The ornate buildings were demolished to enable the line to be four-tracked, and were replaced by more austere buildings on two island platforms between the tracks, including two waiting rooms, ticket and parcel offices.
The final site plan will include parcels where office buildings will eventually be located, including the size and shape of each building's footprint and the anticipated height.
The journey to the parcel pickup office becomes a sort of Famous Five adventure directed by Stanley Kubrick.
It closed in the 1960s and was later converted into a parcel sorting office, but it's been closed – and abandoned – for nearly 30 years.
Once the station's parcel sorting office, in plans for the £500m rejuvenation of the station that was completed last year the space had originally been earmarked for staff locker rooms.
Because of the high price of land and the fear that a prospective developer would not realize sufficient profit from the creation of single-family homes, municipal planning officials began to discuss the possibity of rezoning the 7.8-acre parcel for office use.
John Wright, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "Small businesses are completely reliant on the Post Office network, with 80% passing their letters and parcels through the Post Office and 47% visiting a post office a couple of times each week.
