25 million Christmas cards from Richard

Mr Dykes, aged 51, organised a delivery to every household in the country in his capacity as Managing Director, Royal Mail.

He wished us all a Happy Christmas and urged us to post early.

For his more personal cards he does the same as the rest of us. "I stick the stamps on and bang them in the letter box," he told me this week.

Mr Dykes took over this high profile job in May after being Managing Director, Post Office Counters Ltd since September, 1993.

Previous experiences in a successful career range from high-level policy-making in government as a career civil servant to front line management in industry as Director of Industrial Relations for British Shipbuilders.

He left the Civil Service in 1986 and spent five years as Director of Operations for the Post Office Counter business before taking over as managing director.

But it was his early days in Bolton which formed the basis for our telephone interview.

Mr Dykes's father, Alan, ran the A A Booth tyre business in Newport Street for many years and young Richard has fond memories of spending Saturday mornings helping to change tyres.

He lived in Devonshire Road, Bolton, until his mother and father moved to Lostock Junction Lane when he was about six.

After Beech house he attended Bolton Junior School until he was 10.

His parents then sent him to a boarding prep school in North Wales and later Rossall School near Fleetwood.

In 1963, when he was 18, he left the North-west after "awful" A-level results and became articled to a firm of solicitors in London.

"I did not like it," Mr Dykes said.

After about two years he joined the civil service in the then Ministry of Labour and started a career which has led him to the top.

The Institute of Management recently announced that he had been elected as an IM Companion - a select group for executives who have demonstrated significant management achievement.

He has fond memories of his early years in Bolton including cycling round the town, going to the pictures, the "wonderful" indoor market and watching Bolton Wanderers.

But his father was a rugby union fan - one of the founders of the Bolton Rugby Union Club in the 1930s.

His mother was also from Bolton - her father was a builder in the town under the name of Booth.

Mr Dykes' parents, who have since died, retired to Scotland in the late 1960s and, although he still has friends and relatives here, his trips to Bolton have been infrequent since.

In his new role, however, he intends to visit the North-west next year and the Royal Mail operation in Bolton will be high on his list.

The Royal Mail, which is the largest of the Post Office's four businesses, had a turnover of £4,540 million for the year to March 1995 and a profit before taxation of £449 million.

It is one of the largest employers in the UK with more than 160,000 employees.

The average daily postbag of around 70 million letters doubles in the early part of this week.

"Anything you can do to encourage people to post before the weekend would be appreciated," Mr Dykes said.

His previous jobs include spells as Principal Private Secretary to Jim Prior and Norman Tebbit, and Head of the Inner Cities Central Unit under the present Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke.

He also headed the Unemployment Benefit Service for three years in the early 1980s.

He is currently a member of the Design Council and of the Forensic Science Service Advisory Board.

Recreational interests include walking, music, architecture and Roman history.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.