Jez Higgins

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Paper round

1983. Once I turned 14 I was "encouraged" to get a paper round. Our shop wasn't a newsagent, so if you wanted a paper, a chap from Tacolneston would deliver you the dailies, driving hither and yon in his Mini Metro. The Sundays were delivered by an old fellow who lived at the far end of the village.

He needed a lad to deliver to the outlying houses. I don't know why, I wasn't aware of anyone having the job before me, so perhaps he'd decided it wasn't worth his time. I delivered to about a dozen houses. The bag was mainly News of the World, which you could read on the crossbar, three or four Sunday Expresses, one of the still relatively new Mail On Sunday. My final delivery took both The Observer and The Sunday Times, the two heaviest papers in the world. They also had a tiny letterbox, and polished wood floor. I would post the papers a section at a time, and if I gave them a good shove I could hear them skating down the hall. After a few weeks, they started opening the door when they heard me scrunching on across their gravel.

I was paid a pound. I did the job for several months until I was sacked. I'd gone on a weekend thing with the Scouts, and there was a mix up with the lad who I'd asked to do the round for me. Post-sacking my Mum reinstated my pocket money. I got a pound.


Tagged cycling, and paper-round


Jez Higgins

Freelance software grandad
software created
extended or repaired

Follow me on Mastodon
Applications, Libraries, Code
Talks & Presentations

Hire me
Contact

Older posts are available in the archive or through tags.

Feed