Lovesick servicemen and women in Oman are the click of a button away from their partners thanks to the British Forces Post Office (BFPO) in Mill Hill.

The 'e-bluey' email service set up at the post office, part of Inglis Barracks in Bittacy Hill, has cut the delivery time of post for overseas troops from between seven and 14 days to a matter of hours.

It is an electronic version of the old "bluey" letters which were sent by servicemen which arrived in a blue-coloured envelope resembling air mail.

Families and friends of some 20,000 British troops taking part in a training operation Saif Sareea II with Omani forces, have rushed to sign-up for the scheme on the BFPO web site.

Their electronic communications are printed out and delivered by the BFPO and the service has seen a huge surge to 17,000 registered users from just 400 this time last year.

The facility will come as a huge comfort to relatives after the Government announced on Friday last week that 600 marines were on stand-by for action in Afghanistan as part of America's war on terrorism.

"It is proving to be extremely popular," said Brigadier Barry Cash, BFPO chief executive. "Our force post offices overseas have facilities for downloading the mail.

"There are cyber cafes in certain locations that personnel can use to send e-blueys back home it is a two way system," he added.

"The telephone systems in some of these states are not as good as we would like but that is understandable. In Oman we have got two locations and two machines where the emails are being downloaded.

"It is connected to a machine which prints, folds, envelopes and automatically sticks down the letter so the integrity of the item is maintained and no-one can read it."

October 31, 2001 17:56