Residents of Nether Wapley have been collecting their letters from the counter in the village's post office since Monday, but none has been handed over until its owner has first guessed, on camera, what is inside it.

The postmistress, Mrs Brenda Hulme, films each guess on a small tripod mounted beside the weighing scales. Correct guesses are released immediately. Incorrect guesses require a second attempt, and then a third, after which the letter is opened on camera by Mrs Hulme herself and the contents described to whoever is watching.

Mrs Hulme said the arrangement had grown naturally out of her previous practice of asking people what they thought was in their mail while she looked for it behind the counter.

"I was already asking," she said. "The camera just means the answer goes somewhere."

The new instructions

This week Mrs Hulme has begun taping a notice to the counter asking senders to make their parcels more guessable before posting them into the village. The notice requests that boxes be shaken once before sealing, that sweets be posted in wrappers that can be heard through the paper, and that anyone sending a jumper include a note of its colour on the outside of the parcel.

The notice also asks residents posting birthday gifts to relatives in the village to "leave a little something to the imagination, but not too much".

"A perfect guess is a lovely thing, but it doesn't travel," Mrs Hulme said. "A near miss, where they say slippers and it's gloves, that's the one people write to me about."

Several residents said they had adjusted their habits. Mr Colin Petrie, who posts his sister a cake every month, now sends it in a box marked CAKE, with a smaller unmarked box inside containing a different cake. He described this as fair to the audience.

What happens next

The village's postal forum, which meets in the back room of the post office on Thursdays, has voted to establish a subcommittee on standards of guessability. Its first act was to ask Mrs Hulme to slow down residents who guess correctly on their first attempt, as these perform poorly.

Mrs Hulme has also applied for a second tripod, saying the demand for the afternoon collection slot now exceeds what one camera can cover. She declined to say who had asked for the second camera, saying only that she did not like to guess.