[Evolution] Req 4 help: Evo Locking of mail spools

[Glenn Davy <glenn pip com au>]

At the moment I'm using fetchmail to fetch my various mail items and
receiving it into evolution with 'local delivery'. This works fine IF my
/var/spool/mail directory has 777 permissions. However linuxconf always
sets it back to 775 - in this case evolution complains that it can't
lock the file. 
The ownerof the mail directory is root:mail, and I am part of group
mail, which I thought would make all the difference - but it doesn't.
BTW - Pine can retrieve mail from this spool file if that gives any
clues?
Any ideas anyone?
Glenn