Wigan’s longest serving courier: 37 years on the road
17th December 2025 As the UK’s premier parcel delivery company, gears up for the festive period to deliver around 4 million parcels a day, Evri is celebrating one of the UK’s most dedicated, and believed to be longest serving couriers, Janet Swinburn from Wigan. She has been an Evri courier for almost four decades in Kitt Green, Wigan.
Janet, now 77, began her courier career just before her 40th birthday, initially covering a round for a friend. She has remained a constant presence through the company’s evolution from Grattan, to Parcelnet, Hermes, and now Evri.
Janet credits the flexibility of the role for helping her balance work and family life and says the job has brought lasting friendships and a sense of community. She said:
” When I first started my children were seven and four and the flexibility of the job allowed me to work around school times, balancing work and family life. As the years have gone on and my children have grown, I’ve found I do it for other reasons. I’ve made friends doing this job, seeing the same old faces day to day as well as meeting new ones. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing people having children, watching them grow and now I deliver to them and I’m seeing them have children as well.”
Janet began life as a courier to cover a round for a friend/ Over 37 years, Janet has witnessed dramatic changes in the industry—from sorting parcels at home and using paper manifests, to today’s app-based route optimisation and digital tracking.“When I first started, we used to have the parcels delivered to our house, then we had to bag up the items ourselves and pair them with invoices ready for delivery. It’s very different to how it works today.”
She also said, “My husband and I would argue as he couldn’t get the car in the garage as it was full of catalogues ready to go out and be delivered, now everything is online and no one uses catalogues, some of my older customers miss those as they don’t have the internet to order anything.”
We asked Janet about other changes she had seen over the years and how things had changed.
“We used to use paper manifests, maps to find out where we were going and as I mentioned people ordered things from catalogues. Now we have apps on our phones with our manifests on, and route optimisations to find people’s addresses - almost everyone shops online.”
Janet also talked about the volume of parcels growing, with Evri expecting to deliver more than 900 million this year.
“I deliver about 100 parcels day, one of the biggest things I’ve seen in recent years are the increased number of parcels.”
With the festive season approaching, we asked Janet if she had any tips to give to customer to help with their deliveries:
“Let us know where your safe place is if you’re not going to be in, or tell us which neighbour you want us to leave a parcel with. You can do this before we even have your parcel on the Evri app. It really helps us knowing the best place to put your parcel securely and helps us speed up deliveries to other customers.”
Janet is believed to be the UK’s longest-serving courier.
Carl Lyon, Chief Operating Officer, Evri, said: “Janet and the thousands of other couriers delivering this Christmas are at the centre of communities and delivering an important service. At 37 years and counting, she’s certainly one of the most dedicated couriers – and a true part of Wigan’s community.”