Hopefully the vast majority of subscribers will have received their copies of issue 64 by now. I fully expect that some people will still be waiting. This despite the the confirmed fact that all subscriber copies were collected from our distributor early last monday. The service we pay Royal Mail for states that copies collected will be delivered within 3/4 days. This should have meant all copies arriving by last Thursday. This didn’t happen and I now know why.
Royal Mail collected the magazines from our distributor, Warners Midlands PLC, from their premises in Bourne, Lincs early on Monday morning. At this collection paperwork is exchanged. It transpires that the Royal Mail driver consequently lost the paperwork. Royal Mail called our distributor the following day (Tuesday) to ask for a fax copy of the paperwork. This Warners did immediately. Howere, on Wednesday Royal Mail again contact Warners to say they had not received the fax. It was sent again and the mailing was processed late on Wednesday.
This is of course, totally unacceptable. Subscribers have paid for a service from us that includes receiving the magazine very early in the distribution process. This did not happen with this issue and for that I apologise. I am currently looking into other mail providers as this is just one of several unsatisfactory dealings with Royal Mail.
As and when I have more information on this issue I will provide here.