Simon Evans Way

'Simon Evans, the postman writer of Cleobury Mortimer, was born in 1895 at Tynyfedu, Wales and came to this area to relieve respiratory injuries sustained when gassed during the First World War. After 1918 he joined the post office on Merseyside, where he had settled before the war, but in 1926, desperately seeking the country air as a means to repair his severely damaged lungs, he managed to arrange an exchange of postal jobs with a local Cleobury Mortimer lad who fancied the attractions of "the big city". Shortly after coming to Cleobury he settled into a rural postal round which he was to occupy for more than ten years. It is estimated that he walked over 75,000 miles during this period. The 18 mile route followed the Rea Valley to Stottesdon where he had a postal "hut" in which he rested before his return journey. It was most probably in this hut that Simon Evans put pen to paper to write a total of five books (including one novel) about this South Shropshire area ... '