A SUB-POSTMISTRESS who was at the forefront of a major national campaign surrounding pensions and benefits has retired.

Jean Kendall took on Wolsingham Post Office in County Durham in March 1981 and served the close-knit community for almost 35 years.

From helping children set up and manage their savings accounts, to ensuring older people got their pensions each week–Mrs Kendall handled the demands of the role with skill and enthusiasm.

But she was also active on the national stage, serving as an executive member of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters for 16 years. When she was president in 2000, Mrs Kendall presented a petition of three million signatures to the then Prime Minister Tony Blair against the Government’s plans to pay benefits directly into bank accounts.

This was a move the Federation believed would threaten the future of the Post Office network and the other valuable services it provided.

Members also argued it would force elderly and vulnerable people to use a system they were unfamiliar with, highlighting how some claimants did not have a bank account of their own.

And it is thanks to this campaign that people can still receive their pensions, tax credits and other benefits at the Post Office using a card if they wish to do so.

Mrs Kendall, 79, stepped down when Wolsingham Post Office moved to the Spar shop earlier this month, but she will continue to run her popular gift shop, All at Sixes and Sevens, from the Market Place premises.

She said: “I have always enjoyed my work. There has never been a day in all of those years that I didn’t want to get up in the morning and come down to work.

“I am 19 years passed retirement now and I still work every day of the week apart from Sunday, and even then I come in and sort out stock.”

Originally from Ipswich in Suffolk, Mrs Kendall worked at Barclays Bank before moving to the North of England in 1969.

She joined the Post Office in the mid-1970s when she secured a sub-postmistress position at Neasham, near Darlington. She worked at the small village branch until 1981 when she moved to Wolsingham.

The grandmother-of-three has seen many changes over the years, most notably the introduction of computers and the privatisation of British Telecommunications, Girobank and Royal Mail.

For Mrs Kendall, it was the people she encountered each day that made her job so rewarding, and made her passionate about retaining services within the community.

“It’s the people that made this job for me,” she said.

“I’ve had some fun customers over the years. There is one man who comes in for his pension every Monday and he always sings a song for us.

“Last Monday he came in and sang ‘I’ll be seeing you in all the Old Familiar Places’ all the way through.

“It brought tears to my eyes.”