West Oxfordshire's postal strike may be over but ex-mailman Derek Honey is furious he has only had one letter in a fortnight and that was delivered by a neighbour.

Retired postman Mr Honey, 68, has lambasted his former employer after discovering at least one letter had been sent to the wrong house.

He usually receives at least one letter a day but told the Oxford Mail that between Friday, July 7, and last Friday his mat lay bare in Queen Emma's Drive, in Witney.

Mr Honey blames a lack of local knowledge by temporary staff working to clear the backlog following unofficial six-day strike action in Witney.

And he claimed the lack of post had cost him the chance of a holiday he had been planning.

He was waiting for a brochure to book a trip to Bruges in Belgium but when he contacted the travel company, he was told it had been sent but all the tickets had now been sold.

Mr Honey said he finally received an item of mail his Reader's Digest on Friday.

He said: "Normally the postman comes round at about 8.30am, but until my Reader's Digest arrived I had not seen a postman at that time for two weeks.

"I'm very cross and concerned because I've no idea where my post has gone and I have lost a holiday because I never received the brochure I was waiting for in the post.

"It has gone haywire down here and there are lots of people affected. I was speaking to someone who lives in the same area as me the other day and she saw three people, who she reckoned were temps, looking up and down the street shoving post through anyone's door.

"And a guy who could not speak a word of English, but was delivering post, came up to me in the street the other day and pointed to the sack of mail he was carrying. He didn't have a clue where anywhere was."

Royal Mail spokesman Jane Thomas said the company had hired agency staff, but all had to pass a competency test to show they could read and understand English. She was unable to provide details of the test.

She said: "I will look into Mr Honey's specific comp- laints about lack of mail.

"The manager that took on the agency staff said they were all competent in English.

"They might not be fluent in the language, but they are fluent enough to read and understand it."

"We are working in very difficult circumstances because of the amount of post we are dealing with as a result of the unofficial action earlier this month and everyone is doing their best to clear it up."

More than 100 postman went out on strike at Carterton and Witney delivery offices in separate disputes.