As the postal strike enters its seventh day, people up and down the county are feeling the affects of the industrial action.

Among the first to be hit are small businesses. Today the Federation of Small Businesses called on Royal Mail management to act quickly and suggested it set up alternative arrangements immediately to allow businesses to collect their own mail.

Jim Hickson, an FSB member who runs Storm Fire Protection, in Witney, said: "The strike has a devastating effect on all small businesses, some of whom have to go out and re-negotiate their overdrafts with the bank as cheques don't get delivered. Not only does it disrupt cash flow, but any new business, is severely curtailed."

Fellow businessman Ken Bampton is waiting for thousands of pounds worth of cheques that are stuck in sorting offices.

Suffering: Ken Bampton

Mr Bampton, who has run Lighting Scene, in Pusey Lane, Oxford, supplying specialist theatre lighting since 1972, said: "I know customers have posted the cheques to me, but they have not arrived. I am owed about £2,000 at least. My income is suffering. They have made great play of the fact that the University post was being delivered, but what about the ordinary folk?

"I would not say I was unsympathetic with the postal workers, but so many others are suffering.

Soldier's wife Sharon Doughty, 39, of Mayfield Avenue, Grove, relies on the postal service as a vital link with her husband, Andy, who is serving with the Royal Logistics Corps in Kosovo.

The couple have a five-year-old daughter Sophie.

She said: "We normally write a couple of times a week, but I haven't had a letter since last week. I'm 40 next week and it's Valentine's Day, but I don't know if I'll be getting any post."