ParcelArmy, Marsh Barton

ParcelArmy is housed in a giant warehouse in the very heart of Marsh Barton, an ageing post-war industrial estate in the south-east corner of Exeter, just below the river. Most of its buildings are 1950s, red brick and in an advanced state of crumbling and decay; they ooze post-war austerity and are just ripe for demolition. The whole estate is laid out in a grid, as if in tribute to the original Roman settlement.

But the ParcelArmy warehouse is rendered in the modern industrial estate vernacular, the type you would find in Exeter Business Park or Matford, though it's been on this site for at least twenty years.

When you finally penetrate the modern security door next to the 'customer services' entrance - not hard since it was open and the number pad was temporarily obsolete - you enter a vast warehouse full of red lorries and parcels; and lots of dust. Enormous angled steel girders hold up a perspex roof that is now browned and faded, frustrating the course of normal daylight; the electricity bill is twice what it should be.

There are thick layers of dust, often encrusted, and paper and cardboard boxes everywhere, mostly housed in makeshift 'cages' and scattered around homemade wooden worktops. The whole place is like something out of 60 Minute Makeover.

There are dozens of warehouse people - coolies - all draped in the red ParcelArmy bib, like so many Chinese communists, though they are not waving little red books. Chairman Mao would be proud of this place, a sea of red. Or Bill Shankly. The coolies are applauded by the roar of HGV engines revving up like frustrated beasts, eager to return to the hustle and bustle of their natural habitat, the jungle of the road at rush hour. They are fed their natural food - a meal of hundreds of parcels - by small, angled and portable conveyor belts that deliver from one smaller lorry to its larger parent, like the reverse of a bird regurgitating for its young.

A radio blasts out Radio 1 from a corner - a series of moronic anthems - and occasional voices shout light-hearted jokes, bandying just to pass the time of day.

Everyone wears a red flourescent bib, a very sensible idea, each bearing bold letters, PARCELARMY, like hordes of Chinese communists beavering around, each with its purpose, like one tiny ant playing its part in the greater heap. However, there is little vehicular activity at this time, most transportation and industry given over to the movement of the 'cages', little steel trolleys that carry parcels about the warehouse. This place is all about parcels coming in and parcels going out; there is little collection on site, just sorting and yet more sorting. About 20 per cent of movement is missorted or redirected parcels.

My job is to deal with the problem parcels, those which have an unknown destination or those rejected by the addressee; the bastard parcels. This means scanning each parcel and then placing on each a white sticker bearing a large number, the sort that can be easily identified, from a distance later on, for re-delivery.

Within moments, my nostrils are twitching from the dust and my hands are blackened and slippery from handling parcels, which now slip through my hands like mercury. The orphan parcels will not be fostered out and wish to remain in their orphan cage.

The Boss approaches me and introduces himself: Steve Margin. He is a good sort, a throwback to the pre-Thatcher, union days of the 1970s. He is short, wears a grey moustache and a bald head and is pleased to be hospitable; unlike the woman from the office. She is surly and tells me off for placing a problem address parcel in the wrong place. I begin to feel like the parcel in question.

I return the following morning at 7am for a full days' work - eleven hours, right through until 6pm. The Golden Arrow agency, in town, sent me here.

To be continued...