Culture Singing Postie

Keith Helliwell - Singer, Songwriter & Poet

We are proud to present our very own Strathglass postie Keith Helliwell, singer/songwriter and poet. Keith is a native of Halifax, West Yorkshire born on the same day as Sam Allardyce, current manager of Blackburn Rovers FC! (Well you've got to share your birthday with someone!) Whilst nurturing his musical & literary talents Keith has had a number of career changes. Before joining Royal Mail he worked for 14 years at a well known Swiss chocolate company - a touch of 'goodbye Willie Wonka and hello Postman Pat.'

Keith's lived in the Highlands since 1993 and now resides in Ross-shire, he's currently writing and recording new songs as one half of folk duo NORTHEASTERN SUNRISE with Rob Mackenzie for a forthcoming EP and with our own Iain Scally as recording engineer, it's bound to be a huge success. First song "I Will Listen" is due to be filmed as a music video within the next 2/3 weeks so watch this space!

His 'Short Tales & Peoms of a Rural Postie' is available to order only on-line at the moment. He's hoping to publish his new book in 2010 "Keith Helliwell - The First Fifty, An Autobiography." You can listen to some of Keith's music and order up his book by following links on the side panel.

Any spare time and Keith likes to go hill walking - his current tally is 283 Munros 56 Corbetts 10 Grahams & 3 Donalds. Despite all this and delivering the odd letter or two he also works for The Richmond Foundation Scotland as a carer.

Keith being a community minded sort of bloke is always willing to get involved with local events. A couple of years ago there was a big charity event organised at Cannich Hall. Keith volunteered to do an hour at the start of the evening. Being a true pro, Keith stating he was 'feeling fired up' insisted on a 'warm up' an hour before the concert began.

Now the webmaster, living within spitting distance of Cannich Hall could hear quite clearly the Singing Postie going through his routine. He remembers quite well, after only a verse of that well known Deep Purple classic 'Smoke on the Water' the deafening sound of the hall fire alarm followed shortly by the wail of sirens as the emergency services poured into Cannich fearing a major incident.

Seemingly Keith wishing to add a bit of realism to the song had started up his newly acquired smoke machine. Unfortunately no one had given a thought to smoke detectors being fitted in the hall, let alone the key to turn off the fire alarm system. In any event most of our local fire unit had tickets for the show so no damage was done.


Short Tales & Poems of a Rural Postie
by Keith Helliwell

A collection of tales about the everyday work of a postie in the Highlands. Disclaimer!! This website cannot be held responsible for promoting the use of choice language, flagrant breaches of Royal Mail's Customer Care Policy and thinly disguised references to local residents.(Keith claims the characters in the book are fictional....but we know better!!!!)

Only available on-line at www.blurb.com





Soundbite: Hotel California

wma file 414kb


Full track: Baker Street

wma file 4.243Mb




The Singing Postie on his round!