Paper boy

Between the ages of 12-17 I did a paper round. As my father didn't believe in pocket money this was my source of income. It was a six day a week round but when I started my mother promised that if I was away for any reason on a Saturday she would do it instead. She was as good as her word as I was away occasionally.

I delivered the Birmingham Evening Post. It must have been the first edition as it was delivered by van about 4pm. Always in a tearing hurry the van driver just threw the roll of papers on the grass outside our house. I hadn’t long arrived back from school. Mother and I would sit down and skim through the paper before I set off about 4.30 delivering about 25 papers and taking about a half hour.

I would cycle to the village about a half mile away then going from one end to the other. All the recipients were in the village so I never had to worry about the outlying houses. The biggest problem by far was a shortfall in deliveries. Somehow it happened with distressing frequency that I had one too few. Very rarely was it one too many. Because I didn’t count the papers I wouldn’t realise I was short until the last half dozen. The right thing to do would be to alternate among that last few  customers while knocking on the door and apologising. I did alternate around the customers but usually I was too shy to apologise. Naturally being missed without explanation didn’t make for happy customers. I have to say they were generally pretty patient and tolerant.

Saturdays were completely different. The papers were on the tea time Midland Red bus so I would wait for that then do the round in reverse order. In reverse as I met the bus outside the pub nearer the far end of the village. I had no trouble remembering the round which soon became second nature; where to park my bike and walk and all the little nuances.

The main natural problem was dogs. Owners are always cheerfully tolerant. “Don’t worry, she won’t bite” as a barking hound advanced menacingly. In fairness I was never bitten just nipped and badly scared a few times. I soon learned which dogs could be faced down and which to take seriously. There is a peculiar blindness amongst owners that their beloved animal can actually be rather scary.

Although I knew practically all the children in the village after recently being a fellow pupil at the village school I was regarded as something of an outsider both by virtue of living outside the village and by attending grammar school. I had to endure the occasional ambush and stone throwing. I suppose it was mainly pranks but in one case it was really rather vicious. I have realised since that this was from boy who was rather underachieving in a broken home and was probably envious of my loving stable home and academic success.

For all of this I was paid five shillings a week ( this was the fifties ) and as I returned one and six to pay for my weekly copy of Flight magazine I netted three shillings and sixpence.

Looking back it was good experience in the world of work. I was very pleased when we lived near Wilmslow Martin did an evening round for about a year. Opportunities for this kind of work have largely disappeared now and with many out of school clubs, activities and sports my grandchildren just wouldn’t have time. I never did any out of school activity until I was 16 and entering the sixth form and even then it was fairly infrequent. Because we lived in the country with no evening buses it would have been impractical anyway until I was old enough to cycle back at night.

Have just bought a new joke book entitled “ A dyslexic man walked into a bra”