For 40 years, Saj Hussain has been at the heart of community life in Knaphill.

This month, the 68-year-old postmaster is marking four decades in charge of the post office in Anchor Crescent.

In that time he has weathered everything from an arson attack on the shop to the national fallout of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

But Mr Hussain’s journey to Knaphill began thousands of miles away.

He first came to Surrey at the age of 11 when his father, a British Army veteran, moved the family from Pakistan to settle in Britain.

While studying nursing, Mr Hussain began his working life as a telegram boy with the Royal Mail’s predecessor, the General Post Office.

Realising the medical life was not for him, he became a clerk with the GPO at 18, and later moved into management.

But by the mid-1980s he had begun thinking about running a business of his own, and a dispute over Christmas shifts helped push him towards taking the plunge.

“My dad always said to me: ‘If you ever want to go into business, Knaphill Post Office’,” he said.

The family often drove past the branch when travelling from Bisley and his father had noticed how busy it was.

At the time it was owned by a family friend who was looking to sell.

Despite warnings from his manager that he was “making a mistake”, Saj handed in his notice at the Post Office and took over the Knaphill branch on February 21, 1986.

“It was exciting, but when I walked in I thought: ‘What have I let myself in for?’,” he said.

“I hadn’t thought about VAT, the gas bill, electric bill, accountancy fees, rent and insurance.”

At first the shop struggled to make money.

“No one was spending a penny in the shop,” he said. “So I decided to find ways to make them look around and spend money.”

His brother lent him £500 from the family savings to buy stock.

Saj travelled to Fashion Street in Whitechapel and bought cheap digital watches and novelty items.

“I laid it all out on Wednesday evening and on Thursday morning all the ladies were looking at them,” he said. “I had to go back to London that week to buy more.”

Every Sunday he would drive to London, fill his car with goods and bring them back to sell.

But in 1993 the business faced one of its biggest challenges when the premises were targeted in an arson attack.

A newspaper delivery driver discovered the fire early in the morning. Days earlier the Chancellor had announced in the Budget that the price of cigarettes would rise, prompting Saj to buy large quantities to sell.

That night intruders broke in looking for the cigarettes but, because he had taken them home for safekeeping, they did not find them.

“They set the place alight,” he recalled. “When the fire brigade came, they did more damage to the stock than the fire.”

Despite the damage, Saj was determined not to close the branch.

“The assessor asked if we wanted to open on Monday morning and I said yes,” he said. “I didn’t want to cause anyone inconvenience.

“Pensioners would have had to go to other post offices and they might not have cars, so we threw out everything that was damaged and managed to open.”

His long career has also spanned one of the biggest crises in the Post Office’s history — the Horizon scandal.

Saj said he avoided the problems faced by many colleagues because he always balanced his accounts carefully.

“It did affect me, but I made my money good as I went along,” he said.

“I never let anything build up, so when the auditors came there was nothing there to find.

“But it was very sad what happened.”

Over the years he has also seen the role of post offices change dramatically.

“We used to do all the mail work, government services, car tax, driving licences — virtually every government service you can think of,” he said.

“Now it’s all digital, so there’s hardly anything. Now we’re surviving on mail returns.”

Alongside running the post office, Saj has also served the community in public life. He was mayor of Woking in 2022-23 and chairman of Surrey County Council for 2024-25.

He has also been a dedicated fundraiser for charity. To mark his 40th anniversary at Knaphill Post Office, he has been donating proceeds from card sales to Woking & Sam Beare Hospice.

Rhod Lofting, of the hospice, said the support had been invaluable.

“We are so appreciative of the support Saj has given the hospice over the years in raising awareness of its facilities among the Muslim community and encouraging charitable Sadaqah giving,” he said.

“Without the continued support of the local community in all its walks of life, the hospice’s end-of-life care clinical services, which cost more than £7m a year to fund, would no longer exist here on our doorstep in Woking.”

Despite four decades behind the counter, Saj says retirement is not yet on his mind.

“There’s no retirement in my game,” he said. “This job is full-time and I love it. I’ll keep going as long as my health doesn’t deteriorate.”