STATIONERY suppliers wasted stacks of paper sending SIXTY-THREE catalogues to the producer of a small church magazine in one year.

Viking Direct used more paper bombarding Geoffrey Hallas, of Skelton Crescent, Crosland Moor, with junk mail than he ordered from them in 2007.

Dr Hallas, 73, who produces the Crosland Moor Messenger for St Barnabas’ Church, said: “They must have used about 10 times as much paper sending me the catalogues as I ordered from them for the magazine.

“I have no complaints about the service from the firm because they have been very efficient.

“But it makes no difference how many catalogues they send me; I won’t change my order. I just end up putting them in the recycling bin.

“It must be a waste of paper.”

Among the 63 catalogues sent to Dr Hallas, a retired Leeds University lecturer, were several duplicates.

He received 10 copies of the company’s main 300-page catalogue, which comes out four times a year.

Leicester-based Viking sent the brochures out at a rate of more than one a week.

Dr Hallas’s son, Richard, said: “As everyone knows the volume of junk mail that drops through the average suburban letterbox can be beyond a joke.

“But as all patrons of Viking Direct must realise the problem can only be made worse by being a customer.

“A millennium ago the Vikings besieged us with longboats and spears.

“Today, the machines of war appear to be postal vans and a sea of colour-printed catalogues!”

The Examiner tried to contact Viking for a comment but did not get a response.