The Evening Post

I liked my new job on the Evening Post, even if the bloke that issued the papers was a grumpy old sod. Residing in a nicotine den in the corner of Boughton Close, it didn’t take much to get him agitated and nothing agitated him more than a late delivery van. He’d be all worked up and chain smoking by the time the papers arrived and it took every bit of his wife’s patience to keep him calm while they untied the bundles and counted the exact amount of papers needed for each round.

Paul, me and the rest of the lads didn’t mind the van being late. On one occasion when the van was extremely late, someone produced a ball and we nipped across the road to Beechings Way playing field for a kick-about. Most times though, we just hung around in the close with David Waters, an older boy who was always good for a laugh.

 

‘There’s a little man in my hand, can you see him?’ said David, showing an open palm. ‘He likes having his chin tickled. Will you tickle his chin? Go on, tickle his chin.’

David caught everyone out with that one. As soon as someone tickled the chin of the imaginary little man, David would indicate a point twice as high and say ‘his chin’s up here.’

More often than not though, our papers were ready and waiting. If I saw any of the other lads, at all, there’d only be time for a quick hello before going our separate ways.

Carrying the exact amount of papers for the round could be awkward. More than once I sold a paper and then popped into Forbuoys newsagents to buy a replacement, rather than explain to a casual customer that we didn’t carry spares. As my first five deliveries were to flats above Twydall shops, it wasn’t a big inconvenience.

Friday was the best day, pay day. It was also the worst day because knocking on every door to collect that week’s payment doubled the time we were out on the round. 

Two weeks from October 1969

Every penny had to be accounted for when we returned to Boughton Close. My preference was to go home first and do my accounting there. A scrap of paper; the back of an old exercise book; anything to hand would do to scribble my calculations.

The Evening Post cost 5d. With a delivery charge of a penny a day, that came to two and six a week. If the cash I’d neatly piled on the dining table equalled what I’d ticked off in the book, fine. I could then work out my share…

224 papers a week, at a penny a paper for me… comes to eighteen shillings and eightpence. Lovely!

I’d then take £5 12s to Grumpy, knowing exactly what I’d be getting paid that week. 

Having to attend another medical was a consequence of changing jobs, but it had to be done and I knew what to expect when I toddled off to the health centre at Balmoral Gardens after school.

‘Drop your trousers, please. And your underpants. Okay, now cough.’

Cough!

‘Good, now pull them up again.’

With everything down below all present and correct I left the health centre with Paul, who’d accompanied me. At a bus stop on the High Street we found ourselves behind a couple of attractive Upbury girls from our year, one slim, the other not so slim yet blonde and generously proportioned. From ear-wigging their conversation it sounded like one of them had just had a medical too, and that gave Paul an opening. As my last flirtation with a bird had ended in humiliation, I left him to it; then if anyone was going to look like a berk, it’d be him. But Paul had no such trouble. Once he got the girls chatting, I found the confidence to join in and between us we soon had the girls giggling. As a light headed, giddy feeling came over us the need to show off soared and for some daft reason, we started talking backwards. It was funny too, though we overstepped the mark with kcufho. We were still laughing at that one when the girls’ bus turned up and they hopped on without giving us a second glance.