When the Post Office declared a suspension of its new rules on mail delivery over the Christmas period I think we all breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully everyone received their annual cards and letters from friends and family, bills arrived and were paid in time for discounts, and everyone was happy – at least for a little while.

Unfortunately, this was only a temporary reprieve from the draconian rules that now restrict delivery to absolutely perfectly addressed mail only, whether to post office boxes or mail boxes attached at the end of driveways. It was also a reprieve from a policy that fails to take into account our ageing population and an invisible but very valuable service that our postal workers have given to our community.

Let me take you back to October 1975. I was living in Cavendish Heights on Second Avenue (now called Hesitation Lane) off Montpelier Road in Devonshire. I was at home awaiting the arrival of our first child. It was late morning. There was a knock on the door. It was our postman, come to tell me that my Granny needed me and I should go to her right away.

My beloved Granny lived across the road from me. She had fallen in the kitchen and was lying on the floor, helpless, with a broken hip. Fortunately, she had heard the postman arrive in the neighbourhood and called out to him, and he responded to her cries.

Without our civic-minded postman taking the time to alert me, my Gran might have lain there for at least another day or two, or even longer if my daughter had decided to make an appearance that day and I had gone into hospital. I have always been grateful to that gentlemen but I am embarrassed to admit that I never thanked him as a newborn baby and a bed-ridden Granny kept me busy.

I tell this personal story for two reasons. First, I'd like to very belatedly thank that postman for his truly life-saving kindness. If he is still with us, or his family can identify him from the year and route, please accept my long-overdue gratitude. Second, I'd like to alert the powers that be of the importance in having the eyes and ears of the mail carriers in our community – up front and personal.

We are already barricading ourselves in our homes because of brazen and violent criminals. It used to be that burglars would only enter homes where no one was home and that was bad enough. Now, being at home means locking oneself in while locking the criminals out. With the increase in gun-related crime, the fear of a stray bullet is causing real distress in many neighbourhoods and is keeping many people indoors with the doors and windows bolted. This further isolates the elderly and disabled who are housebound with the result that loneliness is on the rise.

A recent report by Help the Aged in the United Kingdom reports that approximately one million elderly persons suffer from loneliness. Approximately 300,000 of these individuals are completely housebound and their only contact with another person (unless they are receiving social services) is with their mail carrier. Without surviving family or friends they depend on this human contact and, in turn, the UK mail service honours those carriers who go out of their way to help people along their routes.

It wasn't so long ago that many of our roads and lanes were given names for the first time – and the mail still got delivered. Then we introduced numbers on the houses – and the mail still got delivered. Now we have to have post boxes at the end of the driveways and the envelope must be perfectly addressed – or the mail won't be delivered at all.

As the Post Office lifts its truce on enforcing its new delivery rules so have the gangs lifted their truce on tit-for-tat shootings with one already in 2010. We need more not less community involvement from our police service, our churches, our community leaders and our politicians. And we need the Post Office to re-think its draconian mail delivery policy so that our wonderful mail carriers can be pro-active in their districts and on their routes, alerting family members and authorities when the weak among us need help.

Marian Sherratt is president of SORCOS, a social research and consulting firm. She writes on issues concerning our ageing population each month in The Royal Gazette. Send e-mail responses to m.sherrattsorcos.com