BBC NEWS | Magazine | The strange decline of the paperboy

BBC NEWS Magazine The strange decline of the paperboy

I have great memories of being a paperboy. I did it every weekday morning and then every second weekend. One run meant I had to cross a railway line. Actually - it didn't I was meant to go the long way round, but what would you do - walk 50 yards and across a railway line or walk half a mile to where the road goes over the railway line.

One other experience was delivering early in the morning - a dark, cold winter's morning. I was wearing a "Mod" parka with the hood up. Delivering to a tenement building I was just about to open up the letter box when the door opened. The young woman that came out just saw this dark shadowy type figure standing at her door and ran back inside screaming. She was phoning the police. I was shouting back at her through the letterbox "It's only the paper boy". She later gave me a C120 cassettee as a present for scaring ME. This was a big deal for me in those days as I had only ever used C60 and C90 cassettes. I've still got the cassette to this day.

I've just realised something - I have an old record player/cassette player/cd player. I was about to throw it out. But I'm not sure if I'd have anything left to play all my cassettes on (shows the last time actually played them).

There were two rival newspaper shops in the village I grew up in. Whener the other lot got a pay rise our shop would up theirs to just a little bit more. He'd take all the paperboys (can't remember any paper girls in my time) to the cinema once a year for a treat. Nowadays he might be seen as a pedo for doing that.

At Christmas time any tips we were given went into a box on the shop counter. All the tips would be added up, the shop owner would add the same amount again and then the total shared amongst all the paperboys.