Award for popular postmaster who's been serving community in Livingston for 30 years
Iqbal Mohammed has run shops in the area since 1975 and took on the Post Office with his wife Zahida
A popular postmaster who has been running shops in West Lothian for the last 50 years has received a special award for his service at the heart of the community.
Iqbal Mohammed has been running Livingston Village Post Office for 30 years and to mark the milestone he was presented with a Long Service Award by Post Office Area Manager Brian McNaughton.
Iqbal has run shops in the Livingston area since 1975 and the opportunity arose in 1995 to take on Livingston Village Post Office with his wife Zahida.
The couple are very well known in the area. They modernised the newsagents and convenience store and Zahida worked on the retail side for most of that time, until she sadly she passed away in October.
At first their eldest daughter Shazia worked in the family business and their younger daughter, Nadia, is also Post Office trained. They also employ local people.
Iqbal will forever be grateful to former neighbours, John and Ella Gilbert who helped them greatly when they started. John had just retired as a long-serving postmaster in Armadale and really helped them to settle quickly into the role of running a Post Office with all of the required knowledge of products and services.
Postmaster Iqbal Mohammed said: 'The best thing about being a postmaster is that I enjoy meeting people and everyone knows me. They cared when my wife died as Zahida had been a big part of this shop and we loved helping the community.
'We got to know people really well and we have enjoyed conversations and a laugh with customers. My wife would often give sweets to little kids coming into the shop.
'We managed to keep the Post Office and shop open throughout the pandemic, even though Zahida had underlying health conditions, as we wanted to maintain vital services to our village.'
Post Office Area Manager, Brian McNaughton, said: 'I want to really thank Iqbal for being the postmaster for Livingston Village for the past three decades.
He and his late wife, Zahida, who was also a lovely person, have been at the heart of this community and have enriched the lives of people living in the village for a long time as well as new people who have moved to the community with the extra housing built.'
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