This morning I attended the long-awaited re-opening of Allnutts Post Office in Epping. Even before the ribbon was cut, the first customers had arrived with Christmas cards to send abroad and parcels to post. Local residents no longer need to to trek up the steep hill and will also benefit from the excellent service provided by Shanhaz Javid and her team.

Post Office opening hours are Monday to Saturday from 9am until 1pm.

(Of course the rest of the store will continue to be open in the afternoons as well.)

The store has been completely overhauled with a new shop-front and layout. It is a convenient stop-off for all sorts of provisions as well as for around 170 Post Office products and services. (Allnutts will provide almost all the services apart from car tax renewal. You can even order next-day delivery of foreign currency.

The re-opening is a result of much campaigning by residents and councillors, followed by meetings at the county council attended by Shanhaz and Janet Whitehouse, followed by more meetings and liaison between county council officers and Post Office managers, followed by much hard work to get ready for the opening. The official opening was performed by Colchester County Councillor Kevin Bentley (Deputy to the Leader of the County Council) with Epping and Theydon Bois county councillor Janet Whitehouse and was well attended by county councillors from Loughton, Chigwell, and North Weald as well as MP Eleanor Laing.

It was a big mistake of the Post Office to close Allnutts Post Office in the first place. The branch has been really missed since February 2008. I am sure it will now go from strength to strength.

The wreath laying ceremony at Epping War Memorial and the Service of Remembrance at St John’s Church on Sunday were moving and sombre. Several people have said they throught that more people attended than normal. I am not good at judging crowd numbers but was impressed that not only the elderly and usual supects turned out. Every age-group was represented.

As the crowd stood still in the low sun during the two-minute silence - and because even the traffic along Epping High Street was stationary - we heard the low drone of an aircraft pass overhead. It brought to mind the aeroplanes which flew from North Weald during the Second World War and also those which flew across the North Sea to attack the airfeld and other targets in Essex and North London.

One of these planes missed its target and dropped its bombs on Spriggs Oak in Epping: just yards from where we stood on Sunday. Eight expectant mothers died as a result (their story is told here). The local civilian dead are commemorated by the laying of wreaths in the Garden of Remembrance at St John’s Church, immediately after the Service of Remembrance.