AN Oxford postman followed in tennis champion Andy Murray’s shoes, just days before the Scot finally won Wimbledon.

Gary White is half way through an epic journey to visit every postbox painted gold to celebrate the country’s Olympic champions.

Royal Mail painted postboxes gold in the home towns of Team GB gold medal winners in last year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Gary made sure that during the first installment of his 3,200-mile trip he stopped at the post box in Murray’s home town of Dunblane.

He said: “Scotland in general was the place I would say was the friendliest I went to, where people would stop and chat.

“I went to Dunblane on a really sunny morning and I only met four people during the day – every single one was really friendly and really proud of Andy Murray, and they all wanted to talk about that.”

So far Gary, from Boars Hill, has driven 2,000 miles and visited 61 of the total of 104 gold postboxes.

The 29-year-old set off on June 28 to visit every gold postbox in mainland Britain.

He is completing the mission in memory of his aunt, Christine Goodall, from the US, who died last year aged 56 after battling motor neurone disease.

The journey is aimed at raising money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

On Friday Gary finished the first half of his journey at Divinity Road in Oxford, at Gold-winning cox Lily Van Den Broecke’s postbox.

Gary said: “It has been long, long days but overall it has been enjoyable – I think the weather helped.

“The hardest bit was probably finding postcards to post at each box; I’m surprised how few places stock them.”

He is driving across most of the country during the journey, driving up to Scotland and west into Wales, and asking people to take his picture at every location.

He said: “We live in the most beautiful country. It was lovely driving through Scotland and the Brecon Beacons in Wales.

“The worst part was probably in the north west, around Manchester and Leeds. It was pretty much all concrete and motorways.”

Gary is driving his 20-year-old Peugeot 205, which had 160,000 miles on the clock before he started. He said: “The car was very well behaved and more fuel efficient than ever.”

The second half of his run will take from July 20 to 25. Gary will finish in London on the anniversary of the first event of the Games.

For more about the fundraiser and to track the journey, visit goldenpost.co.uk