AS a child I used to love getting mail. Letters or postcards from friends and relatives around the country were exciting in a village where the late arrival of the wet fish van stirred up gossip and where a stranger's cat was immediately reported to the local police.

Birthday and Christmas mail was even more thrilling. If it arrived early, it would be fondled and scrutinised for hours on end under the bright glare of the angle-poise lamp, in the hope of discovering whether tight Uncle Jack had changed his ways and sent a whole pound note instead of a 25p gift voucher for WH Smith educational books.

In my early teens, friends sent coloured envelopes, emblazoned with rainbows and setting suns. I would read these hand-written letters over and over, and always write back. If mail arrived from abroad, it was better still.

To me, who rarely left Yorkshire, having a postcard from somewhere like the Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon land on the doormat with my name on it was like getting a cheque from Camelot.

As a student, mail was still welcome - money from my mother, especially, and letters from friends at different colleges.

But it was about this time that mail-phobia began to creep into my carefree life.

Suddenly, envelopes were brown, with little windows and a typed address looking sternly out.

Bills and demands replaced friendly missives. Telephone bills were particularly unwelcome in our shared house. In the days before the itemised statement, we'd have the nightmare task of splitting them fairly between the six inhabitants, depending on how often we'd used the phone. Every three months there was bad feeling and fall-outs.

Friends still wrote, but less often. To be honest, it was downhill from then on. I began to like the post less and less.

Nowadays, I dread it arriving. Most mornings it involves having to part with substantial sums of money. And what isn't a bill is a reminder to pay something or other - house or car insurance, the TV licence, the council tax.

Junk mail makes up the rest - I seem to have been on the shortlist for Empire Stores' big-bumper-prize-draw-cash-pay-out for about ten years now.

Friends hardly ever write. Those who do keep in touch ring or send e-mails. I'm often too busy and exhausted to reply, so they don't write again.

My stamp collection is severely depleted, and I miss standing over the kettle every so often steaming off unused second-class stamps.

These days mail is formal and threatening - I almost back away from the doormat with dread and can understand why some people, usually heavily in debt and in severe denial, stick it all in a drawer and never open it for months on end.

There have been days when I've jumped out of bed full of the joys of spring, opened the mail and felt like crawling back under the duvet.

I really can't understand those people who are grumbling about the Royal Mail's plans to scrap early-morning deliveries. It's an attempt to get vital deliveries out on time and anyone wanting their post before 9.30am - the present target - may have to pay an annual fee of up to £50.

The later the better, I say. If the mail arrives after I've gone out for the day, I'll have fewer worries and a good time. I wonder, how much would they charge to not deliver it at all?