General News
25 March, 2025
Talbot Post Office among local businesses at the heart of their community
The historic post office supports the community in more than just mail providing an essential service for its regulars.
The Talbot Post Office is more than its name suggests for the local community. On any given day it’s offering mail to milk, hot food to being a bank, all while greeting you by your first name and following up on your life.
Fittingly on a street corner, the historic Talbot Post Office is the cornerstone of the town’s community.
Over the course of an hour the post office’s manager, Prue Hague, greeted the many regulars personally and seemed to pick up conversations from their last visit. It’s a personal caring touch that encapsulates the whole business.
“We’ve got a little bit of everything to make sure everybody’s needs are met,” she said.
In an ageing community like Talbot, Ms Hague sees the post office’s role as especially important. For customers who are getting older, who may have mobility issues or health concerns, having the essentials nearby and people who will check in on them can make all the difference.
“If somebody’s struggling with something people get behind them and help. You don’t need to ask, it just happens. A lot of finding out who is struggling happens at the post office,” she said.
It’s stores such as this that the ACCC flagged as particularly important for communities in limited choice areas.
The Supermarkets Inquiry 2024-25 found they deliver important benefits to local communities by providing a different range and level of service, particularly in remote areas.
For example, Ms Hague described how they sometimes deliver essential groceries alongside the mail to those who wouldn’t be able to get them otherwise.
But their support for the community extends to raising awareness of other organisations in Talbot.
“It is such a small fragile community that we want to make sure that all the different groups and charities are supported to help the people that are in need because there are a lot of people who are too proud to say ‘I need help’,” Ms Hague said.
“We’ve all been in that position before.”
The staff at the Talbot Post Office are tapped into the challenges the local community face being locals themselves.
Customers tell Ms Hague exactly how many millimetres of rain they’re getting. She knows they’re struggling with the dry weather with more people needing to buy water.
“Everybody’s really feeling the pinch,” she said.
Team member Amanda Conn might only have been working at the post office since Christmas but she’s been a Talbot local for 20 years and views community as the businesses heart.
“We celebrate the successes and acknowledge the hardships but without community none of this would exist,” she said.
Longtime local and co-owner of the Court House Hotel Reiny Gunther views the post office as essential to the community.
“The community needs it, it’s as simple as that. No post office, what is the town going to do? No bank, no nothing,” he said.
To him the post office is an essential to any town, like the sports clubs and the local pub.
“Once the shops go, and the pub goes, that’s it. [The town’s] buggered,” he said.
But in Talbot the post office is even more than that to the community. It’s not just a service they offer, it’s a place to connect.