Paperboys losing their jobs? Not on this dad’s watch

Afew mornings ago I woke to the sound of rain on the window and the news that both teenage sons had been sacked from their paper rounds.

At the risk of costly libel action, these two facts may not have been unrelated.

Both struck down by different mystery illnesses at the same time which their mother quickly diagnosed as not too mysterious as to prevent them from going to school or, for that matter, doing their paper rounds.

Well, not so much diagnosed as interrogated until the younger of the expaperboys folded under the pressure.

Watching Tiktok videos on your mobile phone is not the pastime of someone with a headache while eating a cold pizza for breakfast is not the diet of someone with an upset stomach.

Expecting parental instinct to kick in like a lioness protecting her cubs at the perceived injustice of their summary dismissal, they were a little surprised to instead be met with the instinct of a journalist protecting his livelihood.

With the main breadwinner in the family relying on the dependable delivery of newspapers to pay the bills there was little sympathy to be had at their sudden casting into the ranks of the unemployed.

Regular readers may recall it is not the first time the elder of the two has been sacked by the paper shop on reliability grounds.

Last time he launched a formal appeal – via text message – and was handed a ‘last chance’ lifeline, (quite possibly based on the shortage of teenagers waiting to take his place).

This time we decided their legal challenge might fall on their failure to secure sick notes to confirm their made-up plight.

Having survived the worst a grim winter could throw at them it seemed daft to let a spring downpour bring the curtain down on a promising career and the much needed extra pocket money to waste on packets of biscuits and overpriced pop it bankrolls.

So we hatched a plan – based on the aforementioned paperboy availability crisis – that they would turn up at the shop the next day, pack their paper bags and head out as if nothing had happened.

And it worked, as they picked up where they left off 48 hours earlier with just a parting cry of “this is your last warning” to bring the unfortunate matter to a close.