“WHAT if?” frets the diminutive ex-Irish jockey about town.

After Denis O’Randy hears change of use for the vacated Post Office exchanges books of postage stamps for newspaper columns of funeral arrangements, while Royal Mail continues to sort letters and deliver small packages from its dedicated space at the rear of the building.

“What if the unthinkable happened amid all of the loading and unloading of Royal Mail vans and the Co-op’s black takeaway vehicles ... I mean ... for heaven’s sake, who could be sure they’d make it to the Pearly Gates and not be redelivered ... you know ... back to sender?”

“Most unlikely,” advises someone with a Post Office career filling the last 43 years of her working life.

“Give or take the luck of the Grim Reaper’s draw hereabouts, where we hear the likes of our town hack runs a book on who'll depart Cressroads first - his old moggie, J-reg blue racer or himself - the town’s dear-departed will be prepared elsewhere for their final journey. Not at the old Post Office. Or at least not for so long as Royal Mail maintains its presence off the Station Road entrance.”

“No, no, no ...” interrupts Winchester’s family-owned firm of funeral directors Richard Steel & Partners. “It's not true to say the Co-operative monolith has acquired the lease of the old Post Office. The lease remains under negotiation with the London landlord.

“We know because we are one of the interested parties. Our Winchester business has provided a service for Alresford and its villages throughout the past 150 years, and now seeks a presence in the area so that long may we continue.”

Except to deny rumours Barry-of-The-Coop is soon to depart food for funerals - its school-leaver through longest serving member of staff with a website to call his own boasting more than 700 fans - Co-operative Group spokespeople locally as well as nationally are ‘perplexed’ to know quite what to tell the town hack.

Until its Manchester head office laid hands on a third number for him to call. That of its Estate Department’s Jane Heinz spelled-like-the-tomato-soup: “All I can confirm for you is that there’s nothing coming up for Alresford on our computer system. Nor have I heard anything I can tell you. Me, too. I'm perplexed.

“But, of course, no-one will hear a word from us, if the lease you describe remains a matter of continuing negotiation with the London landlord.”

“All I know,” adds Cressroads’ retiring postmistress Jackie Sanger, is that two days after the Post Office closes, the Co-op expects to move in and begin work on the interior of the building. Only days left to go - and, last in, first out, my son Terry’s days behind the counter are ended. A sad day for him. And, from what’s said in as well as outside the Post Office, people are already mourning its loss to the back of the Co-op’s supermarket a dozen or so shop-fronts down West Street.” - www.blogsbody.com