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For once, the post office at Tomich is open when I pass by. Out of curiosity, I peer in. Joyce, who works for Donald Fraser at Guisachan cottages, stands behind the counter. It's tiny – hardly more than a cubicle – and it's a time capsule. The clock stopped in the 1940s.

Old wartime posters brown with age cover the woodchip walls, urging customers to join the Wrens or the RAF or the Royal Observer Corps, or to save for victory, or send a telegram to the forces overseas at a cheap rate. On another wall, a blue line on a large map shows Donald Fraser's progress round the world in the Spirit of Affric, the boat he built himself, tracing his way across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific via the Antipodes and on towards the Red Sea.

It's too late, of course, to invest in the war bonds advertised on the wall. I buy stamps instead.