Mr Norton has been delivering letters in Young since 1966, back when Australia Post was known as PMG, when postage stamps cost just seven cents and all postal officers rode push bikes.

“I was offered a three week job by Eddie Debnam who was the postal manager back then,” Bluey said.

“Now, here I am 42 years later without ever having any significant interruption to work.”

These days, stamps cost 55 cents, ‘posties’ ride motorized scooters and there are more bills or flyers and less personal correspondence in the mail bags.

Although Bluey still rides his pushbike, right up until his last day today.

Bluey rides about 25 km a day on his route, starting at 6am with up to 32kg of mail, delivering to about 700 houses in town.

If you do the maths, that’s over 6,000km a year and 250,000km throughout a long career.

“I’ve had many a flat tyre and had to complete the route on foot,” Bluey recalls.

These days there are more hazards too, for the man delivering your letters like faster, bigger cars and more confident or less observant drivers.

And there are still many of the old faithful worries for a postman, like snakes in the grass, dogs of course and magpies… ‘Bluey is not a fan of magpies…’

And so, with the magpie swooping season upon us now, Bluey has, probably by the time you got up this morning, finished his run and parked his postal push bike for the last time.

Many of the people on his route have known for some weeks and been leaving little presents in their mailboxes for their favourite postie.

That’s actually nothing new…

For years nearing Christmas Bluey would sometimes return more laden with presents than when he left.

So David ‘Bluey’ Norton is a little sad to be retiring but also looking forward to a nice long sleep in.