#postmistresses

[federer7]

Postmistress and Daughter. Luzzara, Italy. 1953

Photo: Paul Strand

[otakutemmiebooks]

These are some of the recent books I've bought. A lot were bought at thrift stores or used book stores so please ignore the crustyness of some of them, they were just extra loved 😌

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

Here’s a request for Abraham as I only just found out who he is and I already would let him spit on me. He’s in the pub where he sees a girl with big boobs and a cheeky grin, he follows her out. Maybe she leads him to the stables? And he fucks her good and hard against the hay. However, just as he’s about to pull his pants up. He falls on the ground due to reader and she rides him like a pony. Maybe some dirty talk and against the hay he chokes her but while she’s riding him she chokes him. You decide how to interpret this and where it goes from there. Hope you have fun writing!

Hello! First off I'd like to thank you for your patience - I'm sorry it's taken me over two months to fulfil this request, I am slow and I have a lot to work through. Secondly, this request is absolutely bonkers, but I've done my best to fulfil it in my own style. I hope that you enjoy it.

Warnings: Infidelity, choking, fingering, smut. Word count: ~2.6k

It’s a bright and sunny July afternoon on Grantchester Village Green. The sounds of a brass band playing and children’s laughter float on the breeze, yet she is bored. It’s the Village’s annual church fête and every Grantchester resident has turned up to take part and lend a hand. Mr. Ruskin has lent a donkey from his farm to give rides to the children, there’s a tombola offering up various prizes of assorted chocolates and cuddly toys, and games of boules and cornholing have been laid out across the Green, under reams of brightly coloured bunting. She feels like she could scream from the civility of it all.

“Fetch you some more squash?” Robbie asks with a soft smile, gesturing towards her with his empty paper cup.

“No. I’m alright, thanks, love.” She replies, stiffening uncomfortably as he places a chaste kiss to her cheek before heading off in the direction of the refreshment stand.

It’s all so bland. She can’t stomach another cup of tea, another orange squash, another egg and cress sandwich. Worst of all, she’s not sure how much more of Robbie she can stand. They have been courting for almost a year - the perfect match in every sense - he is the Vicar’s son, polite, gentle, and inoffensive. She is the daughter of the head of the Village committee; pretty, well mannered and kind.

Truthfully, she finds Robbie painfully dull. He isn’t bad looking and doesn’t treat her unkindly, he is just unambitious and set in his ways. She had agreed to go steady with him because it was what was expected of her. He’d taken her by surprise when he’d expressed the desire to sleep with her three months into their relationship, and for the first time in all the years they’d known each other she’d actually found herself excited by him. That was until they did the deed and he’d rutted atop her with all the enthusiasm of a captain going down with his ship.

She’s heard the murmurs around the Village, the rumours that he plans to propose. Robbie hasn’t exactly been subtle about it either, the way he gawks in the window of the jewellers makes dread sink in her stomach like a stone, not just at the idea of him asking her to marry him, but the fact that she knows she’ll say yes. It’s what her father wants for her, and living somewhere so small, where everyone knows everyone and all their business, she doesn’t want the reputation of the girl that broke a good Christian boy’s heart.

A future as Mrs. Robert Chambers, wife of the vicar’s son, Village postmistress, daughter of the head of the Village committee. Boring, boring, boring.

Life in Grantchester had suddenly become more interesting when he had rolled into the village; part of the Romani settlement that had taken refuge in one of Mr. Ruskin’s fields. The locals had treated them with suspicion and hostility, such was the attitude to newcomers, especially travellers. However, something about him intrigued her; his slicked back hair, dazzling blue eyes and cocky smirk made her heart race, worsened by the fact that whenever she’d seen him around he always managed to catch her eye and send her reeling with a wink. 

She’d never dared to speak to him, yet she feels her breath hitch as she notices him and five of the other Romani men approaching the Green.

“Here comes trouble.” She hears her father sigh as he steps forward to approach them.

She gently grabs his arm. “Dad, leave it,” She pleads. “They haven’t done anything.”

“Not yet anyway.” Robbie says as he returns from the refreshment stand with a refilled drink.

“They’ve as much right to be here as anyone else.” She fires back, watching as the group sit themselves on nearby picnic benches.

“I’d like to see what sort of contribution they’ve made to the Church or Village.” Her father mutters darkly.

As if on cue, the eldest of the group stands from the picnic bench and walks over to Mr. Chambers, depositing a handful of coins into the money box he holds. 

“There’s fifty pence from each of us there.” He tells the Vicar.

“Very generous of you, thank you.” Mr. Chambers responds with a bow of his head.

“See?” She says to her father. “Just leave them.”

As the afternoon progresses, the group is rowdier than anyone else at the fête. The sounds of their jeering and raucous laughing drowns out the tuba and trumpets of the band, earning them glares from everyone else in attendance. However, they keep to themselves, doing nothing more scandalous than using the picnic benches to arm wrestle one another.

She’s taking a walk around by herself, watching a group of children toss bean bags at each other with squeals and shrieks when she spots him, leaning against an outbuilding and swigging from a labeless brown glass bottle.

He winks at her when he sees her and she feels her cheeks heat up.

“Having fun?” He asks with a raise of his eyebrow.

“Not really.” She says with a soft laugh.

“Tea and sarnies not your thing then?” He smirks at her and it sets off a fluttering in her lower belly.

“I can’t imagine it’s yours either.” She says with a shrug. “What’s your lot doing here?”

He sniffs, taking another swig from his bottle and offering it to her. Tentatively she takes it from him, a shiver running through her as their fingers brush for the briefest of moments.

“We’re moving on tomorrow. Figured we’d come pay our respects before we push off.”

She is unable to mask her disappointment at this revelation, her eyes widening as her heart sinks. “Tomorrow?! You’re leaving..?”

He leans in, his blue eyes locking with hers. “You gonna miss us?”

She takes a long drink from the bottle in order to avoid having to answer the question, spluttering around the acrid burn of the liquid in her throat.

He chuckles, taking it back from her as she coughs and wipes her mouth. “Pal’s home brew. Put hairs on your chest, that will.”

She whips around when she hears Robbie calling out for her.

“Go on then, run back to your little boyfriend.” She has to suppress a gasp as she feels the hotness of his breath against the shell of her ear, how closely he’s moved behind her in order to lean down and whisper to her.

She swallows thickly, walking away before turning back to him. “I didn’t catch your name…”

“Abraham.” He tells her, with a mock two fingered salute.

“Nice to meet you, Abraham. I’m-”

“-oh I know who you are. Seen you around.” He interrupts, eyes roving over her form appreciatively.

She bites her lip, feeling the heat return to her cheeks and turns back to rejoin Robbie and her father.

The next hour passes uneventfully, until she hears raised voices coming from the area where the donkey rides are being given. Curious, she moves closer to see what’s happening. She’s surprised when she sees Abraham squaring up to Mr. Ruskin.

“It’s my animal, I think I know best how to look after it.” The farmer says angrily.

“And all I’m saying is that if you’re gonna have the poor fucker carting kids back and forth all day, the least you can do is give it a drink!” Abraham spits back.

The two men stare each other down, until eventually Abraham turns around and walks away. She thinks he has left and is bitterly dismayed that she hasn’t had the opportunity to speak to him more, when fifteen minutes later he turns with a bucket of water, setting it down near the donkey’s hay bales.

Mr. Ruskin grumbles at this, telling Abraham to clear off, but makes no moves to take the water away. She smiles at this, she knows nothing about this mysterious man, yet it’s endearing to see how he cares for animals.

She doesn’t see him again for the rest of the day and it’s only as things start to get packed down for the evening that she realises his group has left. The bucket remains where Abraham left it and she decides she’ll return it to him, emptying the water out onto the grass before turning to let her father and Robbie know what she intends to do.

She thinks better of it as she sees the two of them grappling with the hinges of a long folding table, struggling to collapse it. Probably for the best that they don’t know where she’s going. She takes the bucket, heading off in the direction of the farm.

Abraham isn’t hard to find. He stands in a stall of the stable, running a brush along the back of a chestnut coloured thoroughbred. He is bathed in the orange glow of early summer evening, the dying sunlight plays upon the sharpness of his features, making him appear ethereal.

“He’s beautiful.” She says, making sure it’s the horse she nods towards as she approaches.

Abraham grins when he sees her, continuing to brush out the horse’s coat. “He’s alright. Still needs a bit of work, but he’s fast. Should be fit for racing soon.”

“Mr. Ruskin doesn’t mind you keeping your horses in his stables?” 

He laughs drily, tossing the brush to one side and stepping out of the stall. “He told us to. Pitched a fit when he saw the state they were making of his field.”

She nods in understanding, watching as he brushes his hands off on his trousers.

“So what brings you to me?” He asks, leaning against the door of an empty stall and eyeing her closely.

“Oh,” She steps forward, holding out the bucket. “You left this. Thought you might want it back.”

He takes it from her with a smirk. “Right, because Ruskin couldn’t have brought this with him when he brought the donkey back…”

She feels herself grow hot again, opening and closing her mouth as she struggles to formulate a response.

“Why are you really here?” He closes the gap between them, a predatory glint in his eye.

“I don’t know what you mean.” She whispers, feeling arousal seep between her legs, warm and sticky, as he grips her lightly by the tops of her arms, turning her and backing her into the empty stall.

“I think you do.” He says lowly, fingertips tracing her jawline, the pad of his thumb passes slowly across her bottom lip, pulling slightly. “See, I think that little boyfriend of yours isn’t fucking you the way you’d like him to, so you thought you’d come see if I could do a better job.”

“N-no!” She stammers, fighting to keep her composure, as her stomach feels as though it’s doing somersaults.

“Oh?” He cocks his head, the hand not cupping her jaw moves, pushing the skirt of her dress up her thighs. “You a good girl then? Tell me to stop.”

She knows she should, but what she should do and what she wants to do are at direct odds with each other, so she says nothing, her chest rising and falling quickly with the rapidity of her breathing.

“That’s what I thought,” He utters, inhaling sharply as his fingers come to stroke over her clothed centre, feeling the dampness there. “Good girls don’t soak through their knickers like this for boys like me.”

It’s then that he finally presses forward to capture her lips with his own. It’s like no other kiss she’s ever experienced before, as his mouth moves with firmness against her own, parting to slip his tongue alongside hers, it feels like he is staking claim to her. She clings desperately to his shoulders, whimpering as she feels him push her underwear to the side and slowly sink a long finger inside of her.

“So tight…” He mumbles between kisses, moving his mouth to neck to suckle at her pulse point as his digit curls and pumps within her heat.

She allows her head to fall back with a soft thump against the wood of the stall’s wall as he adds a second, the repetitive strokes across a particular spot deep within her cause her muscles to tense as she bucks against his hand, feeling her belly tighten.

“Gonna come for me?” He asks cockily, sounding pleased with himself. His thumb begins to stroke at her pearl in tandem with the push and pull of his middle and forefingers.

The motion causes the tautness in her to finally give way, a wave of warmth rushes over her body from head to toe, and she lets out a strangled cry as she tightens and spasms around him.

She whines, her knees buckling as Abraham slowly retracts his fingers, but he’s quick to hold her in place by her waist. “S’alright, I’ve got you.” He reassures, keeping her steady until her breathing returns to normal.

The haze from her climax lifts slightly when she hears the metallic sound of his belt buckle unfastening, anticipation causing her breath to come in shallow puffs when it has only just recovered.

“You gonna let me inside, pretty girl?” He questions.

It almost makes her want to laugh, after what he’s just done to her, now he’s asking for permission. She nods feebly, her eyes heavy lidded as they take in the sight of his length as he fists it, long and thick. For a brief moment she wonders how he’ll fit.

“Use your words,” He urges. “Tell me what you want.”

“You,” She whispers shakily, “Want you inside of me.”

He smirks, pressing into her with a satisfied groan and she mewls pathetically as he stretches her open, his grip on her thigh as he holds her open to him is sure to leave bruises.

“Fuckin’ hell.” He grits out, once he’s finally sheathed within her.

He smells faintly of sweat, musky and intoxicating as she holds him close to her. She has never felt so full before, and the roughness of the wood against her back through the thin cotton of her dress, combined with the press of Abraham against her is almost overwhelming. 

Her head lolls to the side and she gasps once he finally starts to snap his hips against hers. He places a hand around her throat, giving the sides a gentle squeeze. “Look at me,” He orders. “Look at me when I fuck you.”

She finds that once she meets his eyes, she couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. There’s a hunger that burns within those baby blues, commanding and insatiable, that keeps her trapped like an animal beneath the intensity of his gaze.

His pace is relentless. The slap of skin against skin mixed with the cadence of the wanton sounds that fall from her lips is lewd, utterly obscene, yet she is too far gone to care or feel embarrassed.

She knows that Abraham is close when his pace falters. He pulls out with a grunt, stroking himself furiously until ropes of his pearlescent spend coat her thighs and lower belly.

He falls forward, keeping a hand pressed to the wall beside her head to stop himself putting too much of his weight onto her, and rests his forehead against hers.

“Fuck,” He breathes. “We should do that more often.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow.” She says quietly, hoping her voice doesn’t betray the sadness she feels.

“So? Come with me.” He says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, brushing the tip of his nose softly against her cheek.

“I can’t do that!” She huffs incredulously.

“Why?” He asks, stepping away, looking for something to help clean them both up. “What’s stopping you?”

She pauses, her brow furrowing as she struggles to think of an answer. Really, what is stopping her? She grins, her future suddenly seeming much less dull.

[mudwerks]

(via Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start” | Ars Technica)

Fujitsu software bugs that helped send innocent postal employees to prison in the UK were known "right from the very start of deployment," a Fujitsu executive told a public inquiry today.

"All the bugs and errors have been known at one level or not, for many, many years. Right from the very start of deployment of the system, there were bugs and errors and defects, which were well-known to all parties," said Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division.

That goes back to 1999, when the Horizon software system was installed in post offices by Fujitsu subsidiary International Computers Limited. From 1999 to 2015, Fujitsu's faulty accounting software aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were accused of theft or fraud when the software wrongly made it appear that money was missing from their branches....

... "You've had marriages fail, people commit suicide, an horrendous impact on people's lives," he said. "It's perfectly reasonable that the public should demand people are held to account and that should mean criminal prosecutions wherever possible." The UK government also has plans for a new law to "swiftly exonerate and compensate" people who were falsely convicted.

this is so fucked up

[maysshortmoviereviews]

Mr. Bates vs The Post Office (2024)

One of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history where hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system.

This show is all based on a true story and it will make your blood boil and make you very angry at the injustice. This is still ongoing and you will not believe how long it has taken for the innocent postmasters and postmistresses to get this level of coverage. A must watch. If you are not in Britain, it will still be worth watching if you read up a little bit on the 'Horizon Post Office Scandal'. It really is just so wrong what has happened.

[las-microfisuras]

Paul Strand Postmistress and Daughter, Luzzara, Italy, 1953

[adventuressclubamericas]

Adventuresses We Love - Maureen Flavin Sweeney It was June 3, 1944, and Maureen Flavin was going about her business as sub-postmistress of Blacksod, Co. Mayo, Ireland. Blacksod’s post office was housed in the lighthouse, which also served as the weather station, and one of Flavin’s duties was to make regular weather observations. She checked her instruments and the tale they told was clear – a storm was coming, likely hitting on the 5th. She reported her forecast, then went about her other duties.

Almost immediately the messages and phone calls started flooding in. “Please repeat, please recheck.” So, Flavin did. She checked, and rechecked her figures, and came to the same conclusion – the English Channel was going to be a right mess on June 5.

That was going to be a problem.

What Maureen didn’t know was that her forecasts were being communicated to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe. Eisenhower and his team had been preparing an invasion of occupied France, and amphibious assault involving hundreds of thousands of troops, and supported by thousands of aircraft. An invasion that was planned for June 5.

The low cloud deck with the storm meant that air support wasn’t going to be possible, and the seas were going to be even rougher than usual. If the “go” order came on the 5th, the mission would have been a complete disaster.

Thanks to Flavin’s warning, that didn’t happen. Based on her forecasts, Eisenhower delayed the D-Day invasion 24 hours, until June 6, 1944 – 80 years ago today.

Maureen wouldn’t find out about the role she’d played in D-Day until 1956. By that point, she’d married the lighthouse keeper and started a family. In 2021, she was honored by the US House of Representatives. In sponsoring the citation, Rep. Jack Bergman wrote that “…her skill and professionalism were crucial in ensuring Allied victory, and her legacy will live on for generations to come.”

Adventuress Maureen Flavin Sweeney died December 17, 2023, at the age of 100.

[rokkunzenith]

Presenting my oc Andromeda Crumini!

She works as a galactic postmistress and can't take it anymore✨

(The reference is volume No. 14 of Spring)

[laura-the-locust]

ALL HAIL THE POSTMISTRESS

[federer7]

“Postmistress Ida, Sherard, MS,” 2013

Photo: Rachel Boillot

[scotianostra]

The Scottish actor Archibald Duncan was born in Glasgow on 26th May 1914.

His father was a regimental sergeant major and his mother a postmistress. He was educated at Govan High School and afterwards and worked as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards.

It was at the Citizens Theatre Company that Duncan joined the training ground of many Scottish actors including, Molly Urquart, Duncan Macrae, Gordon Jackson and Eileen Herlie. He then made his Scottish acting debut in Juno and the Paycock, playing all three gunmen, at Glasgow's Alhambra in May 1944.

Duncan went on to star in London's West End with the likes of the great Scottish character actor Alistair Sim and the late George Cole. Film roles started to follow with , Floodtide , The Gorballs Story, The Elusive Pimpernel, Green Grow the Rushes, Henry V, The Lavender Hill Mob, You're Only Young Twice and Walt Disney's The Story Of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men as 'Red Gill' amongst many others. Duncan also teamed up with Richard Todd and James Robertson Justice in Disney’s Rob Roy the Highland Rogue as Dugal Mac Gregor.

One of Duncan's first big TV roles was as Inspector Lestrade in the 1954 series Sherlock Holmes, but perhaps Archibald Duncan is best remembered for his second Robin Hood role, where 6'2" Duncan played Little John alongside Richard Greene in The Adventures of Robin Hood which ran for 143 episodes on ITV here and CBS in the states from 1955 to 1959. I just had a wee look and many of the episodes are on Youtube.

Duncan's portrayal of Little John would be fondly remembered decades later for his combination of strength, skill and humour. It was during the filming this unforgettable series that this Scottish gentle giant proved to be a true hero and managed to prevent a runaway horse from hurtling towards a group of spectators, consisting of mainly children, watching close by. For this brave feat, he was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery and £1,360 in "damages". But it also resulted in him missing the recording of eleven episodes of Robin Hood. So between times, a replacement was found in fellow Scotsman, Rufus Cruickshank.

Another great Scottish film he appeared in was Ring of Bright Water. Archie Duncan's career in television production carried on with parts in programmes like Z Cars, Hereward the Wake, Orlando, Black Beauty and Bootsie and Snudge.

Sadly in 1978 he suffered a massive stroke which caused paralysis down his right side. Sadly he passed away at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, London aged 65 on 24th July 1979.

[sassenach77yle]

Samhain💫

Getting up once in the dark to go adventuring is a lark. Twice in two days smacks of masochism.No nice warm car with rugs and thermoses this time, either. I stumbled sleepily up the hill behind Frank, tripping over roots and stubbing my toes on stones. It was cold and misty, and I dug my hands deeper into the pockets of my cardigan.One final push up over the crest of the hill, and the henge was before us, the stones barely visible in the somber light of predawn. Frank stood stock-still, admiring them, while I subsided onto a convenient rock, panting."Beautiful," he murmured. He crept silently to the outer edge of the ring, his shadowy figure disappearing among the larger shadows of the stones. Beautiful they were, and bloody eerie too. I shivered, and not entirely from the cold. If whoever had made them had meant them to impress, they'd known what they were doing.Frank was back in a moment. "No one here yet," he whispered suddenly from behind me, making me jump. "Come on, I've found a place we can watch from."The light was coming up from the east now, just a tinge of paler grey on the horizon, but enough to keep me from stumbling as Frank led me through a gap he had found in some alder bushes near the top of the path. There was a tiny clearing inside the clump of bushes, barely enough for the two of us to stand shoulder to shoulder. The path was clearly visible, though, and so was the interior of the stone circle, no more than twenty feet away. Not for the first time, I wondered just what kind of work Frank had done during the War. He certainly seemed to know a lot about maneuvering soundlessly in the dark.Drowsy as I was, I wanted nothing more than to curl up under a cozy bush and go back to sleep. There wasn't room for that, though, so I continued to stand, peering down the steep path in search of oncoming Druids. I was getting a crick in my back, and my feet ached, but it couldn't take long; the streak of light in the east had turned a pale pink, and I supposed it was less than half an hour 'til dawn.The first one moved almost as silently as Frank. There was only the faintest of rattles as her feet dislodged a pebble near the crest of the hill, and then the neat grey head rose silently into sight. Mrs. Graham. So it was true, then. The vicar's housekeeper was sensibly dressed in tweed skirt and woolly coat, with a white bundle under one arm. She disappeared behind one of the standing stones, quiet as a ghost.They came quite quickly after that, in ones and twos and threes, with subdued giggles and whispers on the path that were quickly shushed as they came into sight of the circle.I recognized a few. Here came Mrs. Buchanan, the village postmistress, blond hair freshly permed and the scent of Evening in Paris wafting strongly from its waves. I suppressed a laugh. So this was a modern-day Druid!There were fifteen in all, and all women, ranging in age from Mrs. Graham's sixty-odd years to a young woman in her early twenties, whom I had seen pushing a pram round the shops two days before. All of them were dressed for rough walking, with bundles beneath their arms. With a minimum of chat, they disappeared behind stones or bushes, emerging empty-handed and bare-armed, completely clad in white. I caught the scent of laundry soap as one brushed by our clump of bushes, and recognized the garments as bedsheets, wrapped about the body and knotted at the shoulder.

They assembled outside the ring of stones, in a line from eldest to youngest, and stood in silence, waiting. The light in the east grew stronger.As the sun edged its way above the horizon, the line of women began to move, walking slowly between two of the stones. The leader took them directly to the center of the circle, and led them round and round, still moving slowly, stately as swans in a circular procession.The leader suddenly stopped, raised her arms, and stepped into the center of the circle. Raising her face toward the pair of easternmost stones, she called out in a high voice. Not loud, but clear enough to be heard throughout the circle. The still mist caught the words and made them echo, as though they came from all around, from the stones themselves.Whatever the call was, it was echoed again by the dancers. For dancers they now became. Not touching, but with arms outstretched toward each other, they bobbed and weaved, stillmoving in a circle. Suddenly the circle split in half. Seven of the dancers moved clockwise, still in a circular motion. The others moved in the opposite direction. The two semicircles passed each other at increasing speeds, sometimes forming a complete circle, sometimes a double line. And in the center, the leader stood stock-still, giving again and again that mournful high-pitched call, in a language long since dead.They should have been ridiculous, and perhaps they were. A collection of women in bedsheets, many of them stout and far from agile, parading in circles on top of a hill. But the hair prickled on the back of my neck at the sound of their call.They stopped as one, and turned to face the rising sun, standing in the form of two semicircles, with a path lying clear between the halves of the circle thus formed. As the sun rose above the horizon, its light flooded between the eastern stones, knifed between the halves of the circle, and struck the great split stone on the opposite side of the henge.The dancers stood for a moment, frozen in the shadows to either side of the beam of light. Then Mrs. Graham said something, in the same strange language, but this time in a speaking voice. She pivoted and walked, back straight, iron-grey waves glinting in the sun, along the path of light. Without a word, the dancers fell in step behind her. They passed one by one through the cleft in the main stone and disappeared in silence.

Cap 2 ~Outlander

[boscoebros]

The Charm of Northern Exposure, Summed Up in 10 Episodes

Plucking out individual best episodes of Northern Exposure is like ranking individual cups pulled from the same expertly spiked punch. It’s not impossible to do, it just feels not in the spirit of the gift you’ve been given or the eccentrically twinkling host who’s presented it to you.

Of course, Northern Exposure, the tale of petulant young New York Jewish doctor Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) sent against his will to the beyond-tiny town of Cicely, Alaska as payment for his med school debts, has its odd sour draught or two during its six-seasons.

Quirk can turn twee with just a single wrong step. From the start, the series, created by St. Elsewhere vets Joshua Brand and John Falsey (with executive production help by future Sopranos don David Chase) presented unsuspecting CBS viewers with a much headier and more ambitious formula than its fish-out-of-water premise suggested. That degree of difficulty, which only increased in each of the series’s six seasons, meant taking big creative swings.

The town of Cicely was quickly established as a haven for eccentrics of all stripes, from frostbitten locals with colorful backwoods backstories to transplants in various stages of flight; from old lives too fraught or too comfortably suburban for their liking, to the region’s Native population, whose culture and individuality were allowed far more complexity than on any American TV show at the time.

Installed in a crumbling storefront office with a largely monosyllabic Native receptionist named Marilyn Whirlwind (stealth series MVP Elaine Miles), the constantly kvetching Joel immediately began sparring with Maggie O’Connell (Janine Turner), the equally combative bush pilot (and Joel’s unimpressed landlord) in the sort of will-they/won’t-they relationship that, like Joel’s predicament, gradually receded in favor of fleshing out the series’s roster of singular figures.

Roaring over the town was Barry Corbin’s barrel-chested Maurice Minnifield, a former Oklahoma astronaut, millionaire, and bona fide American man’s man drawn to the untamed tundra as blank slate for his singular vision of an “Alaskan Riviera” hewn in his own stubborn image. Greeting the irascible Joel were everyone from a legendary sexagenarian animal trapper turned (mostly) pacifist barkeep, Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum) and his spacey but worldly 18-year-old former beauty pageant girlfriend Shelley (Cynthia Geary); aged and resolutely sensible town shopkeep, postmistress, and all-purpose town official Ruth-Anne (Peg Phillips); philosophizing ex-con turned all-day radio DJ Chris (John Corbett); and perpetually amiable half-Indian teen and aspiring filmmaker Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows).

As the series progressed, Joel’s predicament persisted (he’d essentially been dragooned into Cicely by Maurice over his expected post in an Anchorage hospital) but sank back into ensemble status, with each character in turn bobbing up to take the show’s delightfully unpredictable center stage. (Whether due to his diminished role or contract disputes, Morrow chafed in his first series lead, eventually leaving partway through the sixth and final season.)

New oddballs emerged to fill out Cicely’s ranks: Adam Arkin’s mysteriously obnoxious master chef/mountain man Adam and his heiress hypochondriac wife Eve (Valerie Mahaffey), Anthony Edward’s bubble-bound lawyer Mike Monroe, fled to Alaska ahead of encroaching environmental allergies, Graham Greene’s Native medicine man and artist Leonard, Richard Cummings’ Bernard, revealed as Chris’ long lost Black half brother, and sharing the pair’s preternatural psychic bond.

Throughout it all, Falsey and Brand steered Northern Exposure according to their own set of wide-open, anything goes constellations. Dream sequences, strange local traditions and superstitions (Maggie’s old lovers have all died in unusual circumstances), singular personal obsessions and quests — anything could happen in Cicely. And, with astounding reliability, the results were as warm, weird, and welcoming as the people of Cicely themselves.

With the series at long last available to stream (all six seasons are on Prime Video), we’ve put together a list of 10 favorite episodes drawn from Northern Exposure’s heady brew of comedy, drama, and enduring whimsy, in broadcast order. Drink up.

"Aurora Borealis: A Fairy Tale for Big People" (Season 1, Episode 8)

By the time this first season finale aired, it was already crystal clear that Cicely didn’t need any outside help in the strangeness department. That doesn’t stop a massive full moon and the appearance of the shimmering-with-portent northern lights from putting a double-whammy on the town’s inhabitants. Some can’t sleep, others are drawn on mysterious walkabouts, and a confused, citified accountant from Portland shows up on a brand new Harley and immediately latches onto Chris’ barroom talk of the collective unconscious, with the mismatched pair gradually realizing that they share the same absent father.Northern Exposure tosses a lot into each episode’s hearty stew, and this was one of the first episodes to find the perfect balance of soulfulness, incident, and knockabout comedy.

"The Big Kiss" (Season 2, Episode 2)

Darren E. Burrows (son of perennial B-movie bad guy Billy Drago) is Cicely’s most endearing figure as Ed Chigliak, a patiently unassuming and guileless presence whose clouded backstory as a half-Native, half-white foundling the would-be Scorsese accepts from his tribal elders with typical resignation. At least until a 256-year-old Native spirit guide named One Who Waits (legendary character actor Floyd Red Crow Westerman) appears to no one but him and tells Ed he might just have a bead on the identities of Ed’s parents.

It’s to Northern Exposure’s credit that we can accept the reality of the delightfully deadpan One Who Waits, or not. But Ed’s ultimately fruitless journey is as resonant either way, his rapport with the old ghost registering in Burrows’ performance with aching sincerity and sweetness. One Who Waits would return in Season 4, and Westerman is always a gift, but that episode’s more concrete conclusion to Ed’s story pales next to the lovely ambiguity of his roadside encounter with a friendly older Native man in “The Big Kiss.”

"War and Peace" (Season 2, Episode 6)

While Northern Exposure would stretch its woozy reality in all manner of ways throughout its run, it never did so as straightforwardly or delightfully than in this tale of a famed Russian singer Nikolai Ivanovich Appollanov (Elya Baskin) whose intermittent appearances in Cicely are greeted with delight by everyone — except the Cold War patriotic Maurice. Challenged to renew their one-sided chess rivalry, perennial loser Maurice accuses the gentlemanly Russian of cheating, leading to a duel where the series’s typical spell of whimsical benevolence seems headed for inevitable, bloody disaster. Meanwhile, Ed’s first love with a randy preacher’s daughter sees the heartstruck teen turning to ladies man Chris for some Cyrano-style flowery prose, with similarly doomed results.

That both stories turn out unexpectedly more or less okay is a relief, although Ed’s heartbroken confrontation with the contrite and more worldly Chris is about as emotionally rough as Ed gets. The series decided not to spoil things, a decision that was as cheeky as it was refreshingly necessary to a viewing public mired in coverage of another needless overseas war.

"A-Hunting We Will Go" (Season 3, Episode 8)

Northern Exposure’s ostensible lead was one the series’ least successful elements, oddly. Joel’s incessant complaining about his plight might have been understandable, but Morrow struggled with the show’s often inconsistent treatment of the New Yorker’s wavering integration into Cicely’s mix. (The number of times Joel’s episode-ending epiphanies plop him right back into crabapple first position for the next are too numerous to list.) Still, when the show gets the ultra-rational Joel right, it really gets him right, as in this outing where the city boy feels duty-bound to test out his visceral revulsion against the locals’ offhand love of hunting.

Joel goes on the offensive about the “barbaric” bloodsport, only to accept Maggie’s challenge that, without experiencing the phenomenon himself, he’s just blowing hot air. Joining veteran hunters Holling and Chris on a grouse hunt brings Joel unexpected (and long-winded) elation—and then a huge comedown when he comes across the wounded bird he’d only managed to wing. Themes permeate the best Northern Exposure episodes in the slyest of ways. As Joel desperately tries to heal his victim, Ed becomes similarly protective of Ruth-Anne upon learning of her recent 75th birthday. IN the end, both men resign themselves to death’s looming and necessary presence in their own way, with Joel confiding to Maggie how death and killing are two very different things and Ed’s surprise gift to Ruth-Anne seeing the two literally dancing on her grave.

"Burning Down the House" (Season 3, Episode 14)

Opposing forces meet more often than Cicely’s benign exterior suggests, with this third-season installment proving that a community packed with dreamers will occasionally spit out some darker fancies.

When Chris builds a catapult in order to “fling” a live cow in order to create what he terms a “perfect moment,” only Joel objects, the rest of Cicely regarding the stunt with idle curiosity. (After all, as Marilyn states, they’re going to eat the cow.) Throughout the series, this undercurrent of eccentricity edging into rustic anarchy runs through Cicely—it’s like they’re one rough winter away from stuffing Joel into a wicker man. Here, the unfortunate cow is only saved via an artistic quandary, not a moral one, as Ed accidentally reveals how the whole cow-flinging concept has been done in one particular movie. Chris adjusts to a less-lethal concept, with the resulting fling filling the assembled townsfolk (and viewers) with suitably collective awe.

“Three Amigos” (Season 3, Episode 16)

The bond between former astronaut and American hero Maurice Minnifield and legendary game hunter Holling Vincoeur gets the rough and tumble outdoor adventure tale it deserves in this episode where the two old friends and romantic rivals strike out into the wilderness to fulfill the last wish of an old friend. Pros Barry Corbin and John Cullum had career-best roles on Northern Exposure, and they’re never better than here, as the two aging tough guys brave impossible weather and their own aging bodies to bury wild Bill Haney, their longtime drinking, hunting, and brawling buddy at the legendarily treacherous No-Name Point.

Portrayed often as two distinct but similar examples of a dying breed of masculinity, both men ultimately have to concede that dying for your word might not be all it's cracked up to be, especially for two old men with warm beds and, in Holling’s case, Shelly to return to. Willie Nelson on the soundtrack singing “Hands on the Wheel” over scenes the boys’ game attempts to honor an old promise signals an elegiac farewell to an old way of life.

"Cicely" (Season 3, Episode 23)

With its season order expanded after two short first go-rounds, Season 3 gave Northern Exposure even more territory to explore stylistically. A flashback episode might not sound groundbreaking, but this tale of the founding of Cicely reframes everything we thought we knew about Alaska’s most eccentric town, all while lending unexpected insight into its denizens, all of whom pop up in different roles in the reminiscences of a 108-year-old man (veteran actor Roberts Blossom) who Joel accidentally hits with his pickup.

Brought to Joel’s cabin for treatment, the old man spins a yarn about the town’s eventual founders, a pair of lesbian free-thinkers named Jo and Cicely (Jo Anderson and Yvonne Suhor) who fled polite Montana society to create a matriarchal utopia right in the dangerously lawless heart of untamed Alaska. The story of the rough-and-tumble Jo and the delicate Cicely plays out with the tragic heroism of two such forward-thinking (gay, female) dreamers. The town is turned around and only a stray bullet (and some “kill your gays” TV tradition) prevents a completely happy ending. Still, as Joel drops the old man at the graveyard where he’s come to honor Cicely’s 100th birthday, Cicely, Alaska comes that much further into focus.

"Thanksgiving" (Season 4, Episode 8)

The Native population of Northern Exposure is an integral part of the show’s melting pot of oddballs, but this eventful episode adds a needed dose of spice surrounding the outwardly ordinary Indian citizens’ existence in a colonized America. Walking to work, Joel is ambushed with a tomato hurled by the friendly Ed, introducing the yearly tradition by which Cicely’s native population takes out centuries of otherwise sublimated anger and resentment in a symbolically messy assault on the town’s white people.

While the rest of Cicely’s white folks uncomplainingly accept this once a year pelting, Joel complains to Marilyn that his status as a perpetually oppressed Jew should exempt him from the Native’s wrath. It’s when he sinks into an even more miserable than usual depression upon being informed that his intended four-year sentence as Cicely’s general practitioner has been (thanks to inflation) upped another year that Marilyn finally recognizes Joel’s kinship with the town’s Natives.

Listening to the bereft and unshaven doctor’s fetal position lament about his complete and utter lack of hope, Marilyn tells Joel he can now march in the Native’s day of the dead parade. “You’re not white anymore,” coming from the no-bullshit Marilyn, lands with unexpected force on Joel, and us. The people of Cicely, in their insularity, are free to process generations of racial and personal trauma in their own unique manner, and as the whole town, Indian and white, gathers at The Brick for a sumptuous post-parade Thanksgiving feast, Joel is free to complain to the face-painted Ed about his own misfortune in strangely liberating kinship.

"Mister Sandman" (Season 5, Episode 12)

The northern lights are back and everyone’s having each other’s dreams. What sounds like a high-concept lark turns typically thought-provoking and stubbornly resonant, as Maggie jumps into Holling’s revelatory dreams about his horrible, abusive father, Joel sleepwalks into Ruth-Anne’s store with a little boy’s thwarted dreams about bottomless candy, and Maurice becomes incensed when one of a pair of gay B&B proprietors (Doug Ballard’s Ron) discovers Maurice’s secret dreams involving women’s shoes.

There’s plenty to unpack, as with most dreams, and there are laughs aplenty around the margins. But it’s in the townsfolk’s variously grudging willingness to accept that their unpredictable home has yet another metaphysical trick up its sleeve that “Mister Sandman” achieves surprising depth. Holling has long decried his French-Canadian lineage’s legacy of awful behavior, here evincing a revulsion to food tied both to Shelly’s pregnancy and his repressed memories of his mother and father. And Maurice, whose bluff, all-purpose bigotry is never quite offset by his old school macho act, gets into a truly ugly poker table confrontation with Ron and his partner Erick (Don R. McManus) stemming from what he considers these “deviants’” insight into his private thoughts.It’s up to the sage Ruth-Anne to have some frank talk with Maurice about his bigotry, and Joel to overcome his usual skepticism when he sees that Maggie’s recounting of her dream actually assists in treating the despondent Holling.

"The Quest" (Season 6, Episode 15)

Rob Morrow’s desire to leave Northern Exposure (he’d already filmed Robert Redford’s Quiz Show during Season 5) is given a typically strange payoff in his final season fantasy/dream/who-knows final outing. After Joel and Maggie’s on-and-off romance sputtered one too many times, the perpetually disgruntled Joel had left Cicely some episodes earlier, going AWOL on his debts and setting himself up as the GP of an even more upriver Native village. Unexpectedly arriving in the middle of the night at Maggie’s house, the shaggy and wild-eyed doctor unfurls an ancient trapper’s map, claiming to have uncovered the location of the mythical lost city of Kiwa’ani and asking for Maggie to fly him the first leg of his trip to find this magical “jeweled city.”

As far as goodbyes to disgruntled stars go, “The Quest” is a confoundingly thorny metaphysical flight of fancy. With the skeptical Maggie in tow, the obsessed Joel first encounters one of those elderly Japanese soldiers still fighting WWII (and is repaid for his ensuing medical treatment with a bounty of sushi), almost gets sidetracked in an impossible, dreamlike spa in the middle of the Alaskan nowhere, and finally coming across an incongruously locked chain-link bridge fence and the abusive gatekeeper (who looks suspiciously identical to Adam) demanding the answer to an impossible riddle. Joel answers and spies the glittering skyline of his beloved Manhattan in the mists—and he walks into it, and out of Northern Exposure forever.

Is the episode something of a make-the-best-of-it exercise? Maybe. But it’s a great one, perfectly in keeping with the series’ spirit. As Marilyn sense Joel’s departure with a signature, unreadable “Good bye” back in Cicely and Maggie receives a days-later postcard of the Staten Island ferry from Joel reading “New York is a state of mind,” “The Quest” stretches Northern Exposure’s woozy reality to its breaking point while still slotting comfortably—and touchingly — into the show’s world in as satisfying a way as could be hoped.

~ Dennis Perkins || Primetimer

[fliptoast]

Postmistress

            There isn’t much to gossip about in a town as small as Branchburg, but there are two consistent points of discussion amongst all of the town. Those are: What’s up with the Librarian, and how old do you think the postmistress is?

            The most conservative of estimates will usually put the postmistress’ age around 70-80, because parents will tell stories of sending letters to Santa through her. She hates being in photos, but there is one, hung on the wall of the sweet bone’s tavern with a date, the only concrete date you’ll find regarding her from around 40 years ago the date reads 1876, and comparing her to this photo, you’ll find she looks the exact same. This conservative guess is disliked amongst the town, because it is boring and also almost certainly not true. She just simply knows too much to be only 80 years old.

            Disregarding that, people tend to put her at the founding of the town, around 220 years ago. Sure, this would make her spooky but not improbable. The tenth librarian is at least this old and she still comes around treating the postmistress as an old friend. There is other evidence besides an acquaintance of course. She gets the names of some places around the town wrong, but if you go looking in the records, you will find these are just the old names for the places currently standing. She speaks of people long forgotten, but looking back in the lineage you will no doubt find the people she was discussing. On one particularly odd occurrence, she described a cemetery that never existed, until a few very bored teenagers dug 6 feet below the area she described and found bodies in what looked to be very old coffins. No one in the town had any record of this cemetery that the Earth seemed to have claimed.

            Others in the town claim she is older than the settlement of Branchburg, and estimate her around 500 years old. They claim she was once a priestess for the Sisterhood of the Knot. Their main evidence for this is that she speaks of the Sisterhood with a familiarity few outside of their ranks possess. She slips only once every decade or so, telling of stories or facts no one in a good 300 years have heard. Some even claim to have seen a tattoo of the triple knot on her arm, though there is no proof to this claim.

            The librarian had a far different theory, however. They never shared it with the townspeople because the postmistress was not someone that they wanted to be on the bad side of. The librarian started to investigate this back when they got a glimpse of the postmistress’s uncovered torso while she was reaching high upon a shelf for an item. There were scales. Scales imply non-humanity, or at least not our humanity. So, the librarian got to digging. They asked for Rowena to tell them anything, yet the old woman remained silent, only stating that Rowena has known her “practically all her life.” Already, this placed the librarian estimates for her age at around 1300 years old. But then they met with Medusa. Medusa also remained furiously tightlipped but called the postmistress “sister” and later mentioned absently that she’s not sure “she remembers her name anymore”. For a final test, the librarian spoke to the postmistress in the language of the earth, of the Cross and their descendants. The postmistress responded fluently; with an accent the librarian was quite sure no person could replicate. The librarian had wandered home, and wrote a single note down “final guess: older than humanity, likely witnessed the birth of the Gods from Blood. I don’t think that was a knot tattoo they saw on her arm. To me, it is far more likely the symbol of the one the Grail supplanted.” The librarian dropped the topic after this, and if the postmistress noticed the librarian avoiding her all of a sudden, she made no comment on the behavior.

[zelzahdarkcloak]

You know, I shouldn't have to wait by the door to pounce on the postmistress immediately like some over zealous dog just because she tends to knock and run within a few seconds and then proceeds to say "no one was home".

[beardedmrbean]

Post Office workers who have had wrongful convictions for theft and false accounting overturned are to be offered £600,000 each in compensation, the government has said.

More than 700 branch managers were given criminal convictions when faulty accounting software made it look like money was missing from their sites.

So far, 86 convictions have been overturned.

The Post Office minister said the sum was being offered "no ifs or buts".

The compensation is for postmasters whose convictions relied on the now discredited Horizon IT system, in return for them settling their claims.

Postmasters who have already received initial compensation payments, or have reached a settlement with the Post Office of less than £600,000, will be paid the difference.

The government said the offer aimed to "bring a resolution to the scandal".

Post Office boss to return bonus after scandal

Post Office scandal: 'I lost absolutely everything'

Why were hundreds of sub-postmasters prosecuted?

Postmasters will continue to receive funds to cover legal fees. Anyone who does not want to accept the offer can continue with the existing process.

'It's not enough'

"It's not enough," said Noel Thomas, 76, from Anglesey who was sent to prison for false accounting in 2006 but eventually had his conviction quashed.

"How do you put a price on what I've been through, what my family have been through?" he told the BBC.

"People have gone through a hell of a lot. Don't forget, some have lost properties in all this business."

Others are still waiting to have their convictions overturned. Those who successfully do so in future, based on Horizon evidence, will also be entitled to the compensation.

Kevin Hollinrake, the Post Office Minister appointed last autumn, told the BBC: "If you've suffered a conviction, and you've had that conviction overturned, £600,000 is there waiting for you.

"We're doing this because people have suffered horrendous situations of course, financial loss as well as personal damage to reputation, and many other things have happened to people. So we want to get this compensation out the door."

He said the government had "erred on the side of generosity", but admitted that for some people it would not be enough.

"If you've suffered, if you've spent time in jail, if you lost your house, if your marriage has failed, all those things - if those things have happened to you, no amount of money will ever be enough," he said.

He added: "If you think your claim is worth more than £600,000, you can still go through the normal routes."

Some £21m has been paid in compensation so far to postmasters with overturned convictions.

It is one of three different compensation schemes that have been set up as the scandal developed.

The Post Office Horizon scandal has been described as "the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history".

Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses - an average of one a week - based on information from a recently installed computer system called Horizon.

Some went to prison following convictions for false accounting and theft. Many were financially ruined and have described being shunned by their communities. Some have since died.

The Horizon inquiry is investigating the scandal and is likely to conclude in 2024.

Last month, Nick Read, the boss of the Post Office, agreed to return all of his bonus payment for his participation in the inquiry - a total amount of £54,400.