Anne Wilkinson, owner of West Kilbride Post Office retired on Monday, 7th April, after almost twenty years as the village postmistress.

Anne first acquired a post office business in 1993 when she took over the running of Kilmaurs post office which she operated for sixteen months. She bought West Kilbride Post Office in Orchard Street in April 1994 and faced a busy and eventful 20 years there.

Only three weeks after taking over the West Kilbride Post Office business it was gutted by fire and the Post Office hastily provided a mobile post office – one of only two in the country – which operated until the re-opening of the main post office one month later.

In June 1997, she thwarted an attempted robbery by kicking closed the safe door while being chloroformed by the intruder. For this she received a Commendation from the Chairman of The Post Office in Scotland.

The former Crown post office underwent a major change in 2003 when it down-sized and part of it became the Cherry Orchard restaurant. In 2003, Anne also ran Fairlie Post Office when its postmistress retired to keep the service at that time running. Continuing her West Kilbride business, and witnessing many changes during that period, along with her able staff, she continued to serve the people of West Kilbride and provided post office services to meet their needs.

The Post Office service in the post office building closed its doors for the last time at 1 p.m. on Monday, 7th April - and opened in its new home – the Spar store next door.