If I am honest I have no idea what the real issues are behind the proposed postal strike – pay, conditions and modernisation are the headlines.

What saddens me is the apparent demise of the postal service. It looks like it is coming to an end. I am sad as I think there is still something special about composing, writing and sending a letter. After all that’s why I have some really nice pens. The art of writing seems to be dying out with kids using laptops and phones to communicate!

My favourite Mont Blanc Pen - facing redundancy?

But what is happening is that the world is changing. Twitter is the new letter writing?

So what is left for the Post Office? Well, in my business, we still write letters and reports. We also send out some promotional literature. In fact, on the latter, we spend around £6,000 pa.

But the proposed strikes have made us think again – and last week we decided as a business that we are now going to concentrate on sending ‘letters’ by email – with no hard copy. And I can’t help wondering if this really could be the final nail in the coffin for Royal Mail.

“Technology is providing new ways of communicating,” City minister Lord Myners said today in an interview.

And by striking – and thus taking away a service the Royal Mail looks like it will force business to look at other methods of communicating with its customers.

I was reminded of the 1989 Book by Charles Handy – The Age of Unreason – in which he starts by suggesting, “If you boil water and drop a frog in it – it jumps out immediately. However, if you put that frog in a pot of cold water and slowly heat it, the frog adapts its body temperature to that of the water until at 100 degrees centigrade it boils alive”

The moral seems to be that there are dangers for people who do not notice that the world is changing. And this is a real shame. Postmen (and women) provide more than just a delivery service – especially in rural parts. They are a key part of the community – just as Milkmen were years ago….

As I said at the outset, I don’t know what the really issues are – but it seems to me that “game over” will appear on a laptop screen soon. And we can save at least £6,000….