I was lost and found on the paper round

JUsT after my 12th birthday in March 1959, I landed my first job as a newspaper delivery boy. It was a 7am start, Monday to saturday, for eight shillings a week. on my first day, Dad woke me with tea and toast. After a quick rub-over with a face flannel, I cycled the mileand-a-half down to the newsagent’s. The owner’s son was supposed to show me the route and accompany me for the first few mornings, but he didn’t turn up. With newspapers to be delivered and my school day starting at 9am, the boss’s solution was to hand me a little red notebook containing the customers’ details: ‘Mr Bloggs, 15 Commercial street, Daily Mail/People’s Friend,’ etc. so at 7.15am on a freezing morning and in a mild state of panic, I found myself on the pavement with a torch, a heavy canvas sack containing 30 newspapers that the newsagent had arranged in order of delivery, and only a vague idea of what route to follow. some street names I knew, but finding addresses in tenement buildings in the dark was another matter. It was a miracle that I managed to deliver most of those papers. Mind you, I’m not claiming they all found the correct letterboxes! some customers might have had good reason to be a bit grumpy over breakfast, while others received a pleasant surprise in the form of a complimentary newspaper. I wasn’t so sanguine. In fact, when I met Dad on the way home I blurted out what had happened in a flood of tears and said I didn’t want to go back. It was made clear that quitting was not an option and that was the end of it. I never found out what happened when Dad took back the undelivered papers to the shop on his way to work. But when I returned the next morning, hoping to be sent straight home, the newsagent’s son was waiting, all smiles, and off we went. Confidence restored, I became a newspaper delivery phenomenon, covering several routes as well as my own during school holidays. However, my grandfather, at the coalface wielding a pick and shovel at 14, probably considered me a bit of a snowflake!

ian S. Clark, Freuchie, Fife.