DELIVERING DAILIES WITH YOUNG KULA
Brother recounts their days as newpaper vendors 50 years ago
IN the days before the Internet and mobile phones, seeing newspaper vendors riding their bicycles with stacks of newspapers in the morning was a welcome sight for many.
With vendors came news about the nation and the rest of the world, updates about heartfelt tragedies and celebrity gossip.
A lot of things have changed with the advent of technology. With news now available on smartphones, the demand for newspapers began to decline.
Many newspaper vendors are struggling in the fast-changing world of print media, which saw a number of them giving up the trade.
Recounting his experience delivering newspapers some five decades ago, businessman M. Sethupathi, 60, brother of Human Resources Minister M. Kula Segaran, said their late father, V. Murugeson, had to commute daily from Manjung to Ipoh to get newspapers.
“My late father was the first vendor in Manjung and he started working in the 1930s.
“During that time, all newspaper vendors needed to travel to Ipoh as it was the only newspaper distribution hub.
“He had to travel about 180km (return) daily from here to Ipoh just to get the newspapers in the early hours.
“Since he had no transport, he took a bus just to bring back 30 or 40 copies of newspapers and delivered them here.
“It was tedious work and a very hard life for him at that time.”
Sethupathi said newspaper distribution improved in the early 1960s when distribution centres
were expanded, and newspapers could be collected in Manjung.
“During this time, Kula and I would have to wake up at 4am to get the newspapers.
“We had to multitask, juggling between school and delivering newspapers by throwing them over the gates of the houses.
“We had to deliver newspapers by 6.30am before going to school.
“It was our routine — collecting the newspapers in Manjung on bicycles and delivering them. Come rain or shine, we persevered because we wanted to ensure that our customers’ chosen dailies arrived at their doorstep every morning.”
He recalled there were times when the brothers were late in delivering the newspapers.
“That happened when we had flat tyres. As a result, we had to skip school too,” he said with a laugh.
Sethupathi said he took over his father’s shop, Murugan Setor, in Jalan Sultan Idris Shah here, in the early 1990s after he got married.
He said sales picked up following the setting up of the Royal Malaysian Navy base there.
“When the naval base was set up here, the luck changed.
“The population grew and newspaper sales were booming, from 100 to 1,000 copies... sales were very good.”
He said selling newspapers was a lucrative business back then, where he could sell between 200 and 300 copies daily.
“Today, it is hard to sell even 10 copies a day. As vendors, we noticed a significant drop in sales six or seven years ago, when social media became popular.”
Despite the business challenges, Sethupathi said his heart remained with the newspapers.
“I grew up with this business, so it is close to my heart. I always tell my children that if they want to improve their command of English, they should read the newspaper.
“Today, I can still see people going through the pages of a newspaper and browsing its contents.”