Strone must be feeling pretty battered and bruised.

First its primary school with a healthy roll in the early 40s, was listed to close in the joke-no-joke proposals hashed up by Argyll and Bute Council’s education department.

Possessor of the last school in the area, the Strone community is mobilised to fight for its school as, without it, like any other community, it will certainly die.

This morning, in a second blow to the community, its 64 year-old postmaster nearly did just that.

Around 7.00am, when he was opening up the premises, the postmaster was attacked and beaten up by a ‘little and large’ wearing dark hooded tops, who, almost comically, escaped on foot.

Dunoon CID have been on scene, doing house-to-house enquiries based around a sighting of two men whose physical descriptions -  one is significantly taller – correspond to those who assaulted the Strone postmaster.

The two men were seen around a quarter of an hour earlier, getting off the West Coast Motors bus at Kilmun and walking off towards Strone.

After the assault  – which left the postmaster with what police described as minor injuries, the two made off with an undisclosed amount of cash and have not since been seen.

Dunoon CID are anxious talk to the two men, who may still be in the vicinity. Anyone seeing anything suspicious in the area is asked to contact Detective Sergeant MacLeod at Dunoon on 01369 763017.