When the village postmaster, Mr Thomas Gilbert, retired and gave up in 1962, Mac Allen, a Woodnewton resident, decided to take on the Post Office and run it in his front room (to the right of the front door).  As Mr Allen was a signalman at Kings Cliffe Station, one of his daughter’s Cecily had recently married and she and her husband came back to live at the house and ran the post office for her father until 1967.  Mac Allen retired from the railway and took over as postmaster.

As you can see from this photograph, the post box was removed from the wall of the previous post office and installed in the garden wall of 13 Main Street.

As Mrs Frances Allen had been running a newspaper delivery business from this house for years, no doubt newspapers were one of the items that were on sale at the shop, together with greetings cards, crisps, sweets and cigarettes.

Mac Allen passed away on Thursday, 5^th October 1978.  He had been working in the shop as usual; Nobby Gynn was his last customer of the day and after he served him, he shut up shop and went into the lounge, sat in his chair and died.