ONE thing guaranteed to raise the morale of troops serving in southern Afghanistan is receiving post.

The Royal Marines of 40 Commando have been in the Sangin region of Helmand province for over three months, but the flow of letters and parcels has not slowed.

The task of sorting the post for 40 Commando falls to L Cpl Marcus Gilchrist.

He said almost a quarter of the post comes from total strangers.

Narcus added: “A lot is donated by the general public. It comes from all sorts of people from all corners of Britain.”

As the post officer for Combined Force Sangin, Marcus is responsible for handling the post of more than 1,000 people.

He said: “I get anywhere up to 100 sacks every day, and in each sack I may have up to 10-15 welfare parcels.

“Letters or parcels sent from the UK will go from the local post office straight to the big sorting office at RAF Brize Norton.

“From there it will be forwarded onto a flight, either via Minhad in Dubai or Kandahar, then it will come to Helmand. It arrives at Camp Bastion and I have to collect it.

“The post gets sorted and allocated to the company or Forward Operating Base. It is then loaded onto a helicopter and delivered.”

Marcus added: “The boxes vary in size, but mostly they’re the size of a shoebox and contain all sorts of goodies - nuts, sweets, biscuits and cakes.

“We also get a lot of toiletries, such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, soaps, shower gels, and also some fun gimmicks just to raise a bit of morale for the lads.

“They get an even share of all the welfare that comes through.”

Marcus said the Commandos were chuffed with people’s generosity.

He added: “It’s really heartening to know that everybody back home is thinking about us, and we really appreciate it.”