Snail mail is fighting back

Local villager Gareth Weekes, 68, was baffled when two separate letters he sent on different weeks were received with ragged holes

Notified of the damage by the bemused recipients, the former newspaperman immediately got on the trail to find out the source of the paper destruction.

The penny dropped when he saw a snail - Latin name Helix aspersa - making its way into the stone wall-embedded postbox because of a strong homing instinct.

Weekes, who lives at Deadbeer, Clayhidon, in the remote Blackdown Hills, said: "The slimy blighters were living in the dark down there, making lunch out of my letters and envelopes, including my car registration document and a note to the bank manager.

"The whole experience has put a new meaning to the expression snail mail in our digital age and the incident is causing a stir in the parish because you don't expect your mail to be tampered with.

"Fortunately these garden pests didn't attack the Queen's head on the stamps, which meant that the letters at least made their way through the system after collection.

"I shall be having a quiet word with our postie to see what can be done. Alternatively I might have to shell out to drive six miles into Wellington - I'm sure they don't have this kind of problem there. Failing that, I could just send an old-fashioned email."

Father-of-three Weekes is the chairman of a communications consultancy, Deep South Media, and he is a former editor of the Bournemouth Daily Echo and Salisbury Journal.