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4 Private detective
3 Market stallholder
2 Mobile DJ
1 Newsagent
I would begin work as soon as life allowed me to, although ironically it was death that gave me the green light to start work in the first place.
My father’s death when I was thirteen—although obviously devastating for a young boy who loved and respected his dad—did mean that I could, for the first time in my life, take on a paper round. Had my dad still been alive he would never have allowed such a thing.
‘Slave labour! No child of mine is working for a pittance like that,’ I can hear him saying it now. What Dad failed to realise was the fact that a paper round would elevate a kid of my current financial standing, i.e. almost zero (except for my pocket money), to relatively millionaire status.
My first job was for a newsagent called Ralph. He had an innate talent for impatience and was the sternest man I had come across thus far in my life, much more so than Mum or Dad or any of my teachers.
Ralph had just the one shop but if you ran it like he did, one shop was all you needed. It yielded enough for him to have one of the swellest houses in town—pretty damn large.
Chez Ralph and Mrs Ralph, whom I never met in all the years I knew him, was located in a place called Grappenhall, which is an area close to Warrington on the other side of the Manchester Ship Canal. To get there you have to cross one of two mighty bridges, the first being a huge clumping swing bridge, the second a towering cantilever bridge, both breathtakingly impressive for their time.
Grappenhall was generally accepted as the posh part of town, probably because they had their own cricket team and something akin to a village green, as well as lots of houses like Ralph’s, of course. Ralph’s grand pile, a testament to Victorian splendour, had both a drive in as well as out plus a vast stepped lawn at the rear.
One newsagent shop equals one very big, nice house, I made a mental note.
Ralph was firm but fair, something I have never had a problem with, but he could also be a real old grump—a ‘misery guts’ as they might say, usually at the expense of his own happiness. Don’t grumpy people realise it’s mostly them who lose out as a result of their moodiness?
And why would anyone do grumpy in the first place? Is it because they think it means the rest of us will take them more seriously, be less likely to try and take them for a ride perhaps? I have no idea why a person would choose to adopt such a posture. Surely it can’t be worth it, no matter what the upside. Surely they don’t enjoy being grumpy every day. It must be such a draining way to exist. I have never understood such grumps.
I still know people like Ralph today and it still bemuses me. What’s wrong with these guys? Have they never read A Christmas Carol and thought to do something about themselves before it’s all too late and the grim reaper comes a-knocking? Have they never watched It’s A Wonderful Life and realised we all want to be George Bailey because he’s a good guy and everyone loves him and we all want to be loved because it feels great?
Ralph’s emotional misgivings, however, although observed, were of little matter to me. Ralph had a paper round up for grabs and I was very much up for grabbing a paper round. He needed someone like me and I needed someone like him.
Alright, so having a paper round would mean having to get out of bed while most of the rest of the country was still asleep, but I was only lying in bed waiting to grow up anyway. I might as well grow up on the move and get paid for it into the bargain, then come the weekend I would be able to afford things! I would be able to buy almost anything I wanted, pasties from the pie shop, sweets and pop, tickets to the pictures, space invaders from the arcade—my mind began reeling with the endless possibilities.
I was still only a kid but as far as I could see I would soon be almost completely financially independent. Although I suppose in a way I was already financially independent—it was just that I didn’t have any money to be independent with.
All things considered I couldn’t wait to step up to the employment plate for the first time.
Ralph’s shop was the model of efficiency. A huge glass window at the front was full of children’s toys, most of which had been there so long they had faded in the sunlight. As you entered his hallowed premises, to the left there were four substantial greetings card stands, whilst to the right was a beaten up old ice-cream freezer which flanked the sweet counter. The sweet counter itself was myriad plate-glass shelves laden with sixty or seventy jars of loose sweets. There were crisp boxes stacked high in the corner, chocolate bars and penny mix items at the front. Next to a simple wooden drawer which was used as a till were the weighing scales and numerous different-sized white paper bags tied together with string, hung from a series of hooks.
There were two further counters Ralph had managed to pack into his tiny square footage, each a little goldmine of its own. Opposite the sweet counter was a full-time post office, consisting of two teller positions safeguarded behind double-thick glass screens, which were busy for most of the day. Finally there was Ralph’s stage: the mighty newspaper and cigarette counter. This is where the serious money was taken, buoyed by the additional revenue stream of the legendary football pools.
It was in front of Ralph’s counter that I would ask for my first ever job.
‘I’ve come about the paper round.’
Ralph looked down at me, I looked up at him; that’s when I first noticed how miserable he was. My natural reaction was to smile, but this instantly made him feel uncomfortable. He quickly looked to the side before grumbling, ‘Come in seven o’clock sharp tomorrow. Don’t be late, one week’s trial without pay.’
‘Ah, I see,’ a miserable man, a tough man and now most probably a mean man—often the three go together, Dickens had it right. Surely one day of delivering papers would be trial enough. If I couldn’t do it after that, what difference would another several days of ‘trial’ make?
Of course this was simply Ralph’s way of getting a free week out of a new boy but, as I suspected then and as I know for sure now, one should never allow the terms of a small contract to get in the way of a much bigger one down the line—without the rungs at the bottom of the ladder you’ll never reach those that lead to the top.
Besides, if you feel like you’re really being stung, there’s always the potential for renegotiation in the future but not until after you’ve proved your worth. This is when you will have something to bargain with. At the beginning of such situations all the Ralphs of this world hold all the cards, but if you’re any good, from day one, this balance immediately begins to shift your way.
My ‘trial’ week duly came and went, and I presumed I passed as nobody thought to tell me otherwise or asked me to leave. This, I surmised, meant I had got the job and poor old Ralph would now have to revert to his rather reluctant stance of paying another small boy very little, to make a grown man quite a lot.
I took to the world of employment like a duck to water and I especially enjoyed the quiet of the early morning, the stillness of the air which allowed sounds to carry much further than they did during the day. I marvelled at the absolute calm of everything before the rest of the neighbourhood decided to wake up. I realised for the first time what creatures of ridiculous habit we human beings are. I wondered why more people didn’t seize the day earlier and set about their business when there was no one to get in the way or put them off.
In the summer I would have the sunrises all to myself; in the winter the snow was mine to step in first. I would often witness the best weather of the day. It’s spooky how the elements often started off favourably and then grew a little more disgruntled the more people they had to deal with. ‘The world only likes people who like the world,’ I thought.
Back at the shop, I soon discovered that the earlier you turned up in the morning, the more quickly you were likely to get your paper round made up and hence be out of the door and on the road. This was because most of the boys were still in love with their sleep and left it till the last possible moment before they arrived. In their minds this also meant that they could go straight on to school afterwards without having to go home, if they wore their school uniform that is.
Potentially this may have seemed like a good plan, but apart from having to wear stinky, sweaty clothes for the rest of the day, as delivering papers was no walk in the park, these boys often ended up having to wait for their rounds because they all showed up at the same time—a complete false economy as far as I could see. If, on the other hand, you told the manager you would be in early he would try to make sure your round was ready for you. Bosses like employees who turn up on time, even better if they’re early, they also like employees who make their lives easier.
It wasn’t long before I was finishing my round before most of the rest of the boys had even started theirs and it wasn’t long before I was promoted to the heady heights of ‘spare boy’.
The role of spare boy was to be both my first promotion and the first position for which I would be retained. Spare boy was paid an additional weekly fee for coming back after his round every morning in case someone hadn’t turned up. If this happened to be the case, spare boy would rush to the rescue like a paper boy superhero to save the day, all for a bonus payment of course.
There were occasions when I would end up doing not one extra round but two or three in all. If a boy was a no show, I would take on his round and see if I could do it quicker than him. I would sometimes run my rounds—the quicker I delivered, the lighter my bag would be; the lighter my bag, the quicker still I could go. It all made perfect sense to me. I would see other boys trudging their rounds, hating every second, where was their logic? If you don’t like something, either don’t do it in the first place, or get it over with as soon as possible, don’t drag it out, for heaven’s sake.
When old paper boys left, new paper boys replaced them and they in turn would have to be taught their rounds. This was another aspect of the spare boy’s role. In time, I came to know all sixteen of our rounds, something that would stand me in great stead for the future.
The next step up the employment ladder was to get a collecting round. Not only were some people too lazy to get their own newspapers in the morning but some of them, it transpired, couldn’t even be bothered to go and pay their bill once a week.
I found this incredible, I could hardly believe such goofballs existed but more fool them and more money for me. Their lethargy was my lolly.
Being given a collecting round was the first outstretched finger of trust from Ralph to one of his boys. The boys who held the lofty position of collector were considered very much senior to those who did not. Every Friday, after school, the collecting cognoscenti would chase down the same paper rounds as we did in the mornings but this time free of our bulging bags and armed instead with book, biro and a pocket full of jangling coins.
We were each given a two-pound float to take with us in case any customers needed change. Upon our return, we then had to add up our receipts, count out our money, subtract our float from the total and hence, hopefully, balance our books. This was my first encounter with simple but highly effective early business practice. This is how business worked. What could be more straightforward?
The pay for collecting was 10 per cent of whatever you collected, which often turned out to be more than you would get for a whole week of delivering. This was easy street in comparison to the delivery rounds, but you had to deliver to get to collect and the better you delivered the better collecting round you were rewarded with. Ralph was a disaster at social intercourse but he sure knew how to get the best out of his boys. He was like a cross between Scrooge and Fagin.
So, what with my morning round, the hallowed position of spare boy, the collecting round, plus additional evening and the Saturday Pink Final rounds (the Pink Finals were sport result sheets, prepared to arrive half an hour after the final scores had come in), I was bringing home easily over a tenner, more towards fifteen quid a week!
Doing the maths, I figured this meant in six weeks I would have close to a hundred pounds. A hundred pounds to my mind was a small fortune—it was enough to buy a brand new bike and still have fifty quid left. It took my mum a whole year to buy my last bike. On this kind of money I could even afford a secondhand motorcycle, or even, at a stretch…an old car! Not that I had any use for one as I was still three years away from being eligible to drive.
This was simply amazing to me, the concrete of the council estate where I lived was still all around but its greyness was beginning to fade. As I had suspected, working worked.
Some of the houses where I collected from on a Friday were also the ‘nice’ houses. I could see into their living rooms as I stood by the door waiting for someone to come and pay. These houses had a different smell, they had a different energy, there was more going on. The women who answered the doors seemed to smile more, they were prettier, kinder, they even looked younger. What was it with these people? They had something else going on.
Then one day I realised. They were happier.
I made another mental note, bigger, nicer house, equals happier—usually unless you were Ralph or one of the other grumblies.
Top 10 Bosses I’ve Worked For (#ulink_632e9a02-57ef-55f1-aa00-2e7a60210536)
10 Richard Branson (Virgin Radio)
9 Michael Grade (Channel 4)
8 Andrea Wonfor (Channel 4)
7 Don Atyeo (The Power Station)
6 Timmy Mallett (Piccadilly Radio)
5 Charlie Parsons (The Big Breakfast)
4 Waheed Alli (The Big Breakfast)
3 Matthew Bannister (Greater London Radio)
2 Lesley Douglas (Radio 2)
1 Mike Hibbett (Ralph’s Newsagents)
My newsagency career continued to blossom and with it my bank account. It wasn’t long before I saw my next promotion. Forget the army, there are more ranks to the hierarchical structure of a newsagents than most international organisations.
My next stripe on the arm was a biggy: I was to be elevated to the much-envied post of ‘marker-up’.
The marker-up was the boy who arrived at the same time as Mike the manager. Mike was dead cool, he was forty, which I thought was pretty old at the time but not that old—not in his case at least. To my mind there are young forty year olds and there are old forty year olds, and Mike was definitely one of the former. He loved to play squash, had been a pretty handy footballer in his day and still kept himself fit by going for a run three or four times a week. He was also one of life’s good guys.
Mike is still in the top three bosses I’ve ever had. He was the type of guy that you just did things for, he was always really kind to me. I remember he had a son who I thought was so lucky to have a dad like him.
Mike worked hard and always had a smile on his face, especially when the two girls from the chemist came in for their fags. The girls from the chemist were hot—and I mean really hot. I can still picture them perfectly today. They had huge big smiles, the kind that can take you away to another place. Both of them were brunettes, with bunches of gorgeous shiny hair cascading down over their shoulders and they always came in wearing their white coats, almost always giggling.
Please don’t tell me—anyone who’s reading this—that they ever got any older. Girls like that should be preserved for ever, just as you remember them. One was called Jill, the small one, she was the one I really fancied, but I never found out the name of the other one—I just called them Jill and Thrill.
Obviously I was far too young to stand a chance with either—they were in their twenties and I was only thirteen—but I could fantasise. Boy, could I fantasise.
Meeting and talking to women that I would never otherwise have come into contact with was another big bonus of working in the shop. I could see what made them laugh, what made them sad, how they were so different to the men that came in. Experience that undoubtedly helped me in the rest of my life when it came to getting on with the opposite sex.
If you think about it, boys of a certain age usually only get to talk to girls roughly the same age—their only other female interaction being with members of their family and their mum’s mates or maybe their mates’ mums. This is why so many young boys end up fancying such ladies, it’s a question of needs must. These women are often the only other ‘real women’ young boys come into contact with.
Perhaps this is also why so many mums also fancy their sons’ mates or their mates’ sons. Both parties have an equally limited circle of opportunity; both sides are vulnerable and there is a common thirst to be quenched. Drink up everyone!
My job as marker-up meant I had to arrive at the shop just before 5 a.m. The newspapers having already been delivered in their bundles in the doorway, it was my first task of the day to haul them in off the step, cut them open and count them all out to make sure there was none missing—twenty-five to a quire, eight quires to a bundle, if you were any copies short, you’d make a note and then call and ask for the van to come back later to drop off replacements.
Next we would dress the counter, stacking each brand of paper in order of their popularity, the most popular nearest to hand for efficiency. In our shop it was the Daily Mirror first, the Sun second, then the Daily Mail, the Star and the Express; we hardly sold any broadsheets, maybe ten each of the Telegraph and The Times—and no Guardians at all! Once this was done we would be set to start, both Mike and I now barely visible surrounded by mini skyscrapers of newspapers.
It was always a competition as to who could finish marking up their rounds first, pistols at dawn, Bic biros at the ready. Each paper round had a corresponding marking up book. The marking up books were handwritten elaborate affairs, not unlike a cricket scorebook in their intricacy and precise beauty. The drawing up of these books was a delicate and painstaking process and one which Ralph had reputedly evolved over the years. No one was particularly clear exactly how or why his system worked but work it did. If there had been a fire there is little doubt the stack of marking up books would have been the thing that Ralph would risk his life to save, certainly way ahead of any of us paperboys.
Mike and I would split the books, eight rounds each and then get to work. The key to speed was getting used to where each brand of paper was without having to look up from the book and losing your place, like a drummer with a drumkit. Once a paper had been slid from the top of its pile, a fast firm fold was then required to make it behave as it was stacked on top of the round having been marked somewhere in the right-hand margin of the front page with the number of the house to which it was destined. The first paper for each new street also bore the street name.
It sounds like a laborious process—and I suppose it was—but it could be carried out with relative alacrity. Once a rhythm was achieved you could really get into the swing, I loved it. You could almost make the papers crack if you folded them sharply.
My workstation was based behind the infamous post office counter while Mike would work from the main cigarette counter. He was so fast, the fastest, he would almost always beat me hands down, finishing his half of the rounds a good round or two before me. This was even more impressive considering he was serving customers as well as joking and laughing with them at the same time.
The best thing about getting the job of marker up was that you then didn’t have to do a paper round at all. Sure you had to get up even earlier than before, which some of the lads just couldn’t comprehend, but then again you got paid so much more. The financial gain curve was exponential.
Marking up was also an officially recognised shop job which therefore meant it carried a compulsory hourly rate. This translated into me now being paid more an hour for working in a nice warm shop than the paper boys were being paid for a whole week of delivering newspapers, whatever the weather. Again, it baffled me why on earth they couldn’t see the bigger picture.
Working behind the counter was the real deal for me: it was recognition, it was respect, it was civilised and with the marking up complete, it was a cup of coffee for Mike and tea for me. We would take turns brewing up before I took over the shop and Mike went ‘in the back’. I never really knew what Mike did when he went ‘in the back’—he was probably thinking about Jill and Thrill and the countdown to their fag run, not that I cared, I was out front performing my first ever breakfast show.
‘Good morning, how are you today, what can I do you for?’
Real adults handing over hard cash. I used to pride myself on knowing the customers’ different orders. Some would leave their car engines running outside while they popped in to pick up their paper and a half an ounce of tobacco. Others would announce their arrival with a glorious exhibition of uncontrollable coughing and spluttering.
Once these guys started to cough and splutter there was no telling how long it might last, it could go on for minutes and the noises that they used to make were extraordinary—exclusive only to the serious early morning smoker: chesty rumblings, throats sounding like they were gargling with broken glass, coughing so hard their faces would turn a violent shade of purple. Often they would have to excuse themselves as they found the need to go back out of the shop ‘mid-order’ to spit out a huge pavement cracking greeny. A typical order would be:
‘Daily Mirror please, sixty Senior Service and a box of Swan Vestas.’
Sixty cigarettes! And non-filtered Senior Service! A day!
Shit, man, that was serious, these guys were hard core. Do you have any idea what just one of these cigarettes would do to the average human lung? Maybe with the exception of Capstan full strength, which were just insane, Senior Service were the strongest cigarettes known to mankind. They would make the ‘Lights’ of today seem like fresh mountain air in comparison. It was incredible the men who smoked these coffin nails were still breathing, let alone going to work every day and asking for more.
Then there were the ‘silents’, a strange breed who only ever pointed to what they wanted and always had exactly the right money so they didn’t have to speak to you. What was all that about?
As the morning developed, the shop would go through peaks and troughs of patronage with the clientele changing according to the schedule of the day. The shift workers would cough their way into the shop either side of six o’clock, depending on whether they were just starting or just finishing.
There would then be a bit of a lull between 6.30 and 7.30 when we’d try to get most of the boys loaded and on their way—if they had turned up by then that is—and then the school kids would start to come in at around a quarter to eight.
Eight till nine would see a procession of younger pupils stocking up on their daily supply of sweets and snacks and as the big hand headed towards nine, in would come the young mums with their little bundles of joy off to playschool. Finally, the pensioners would begin to assemble on parade ready to descend upon the post office for their various benefits and other requirements.
The OAPs often arrived much earlier than they needed to. They used to meet their pals for a chinwag but Ralph made them queue up outside so as not to clog up the shop—even in the rain, even in the snow in the middle of winter. I suppose he had a point but it just seemed so wrong. These people were elderly, often infirm, and most of them had served in one if not both of the wars so we could still have a bloody post office in the first place.
I vowed that, whatever else I did in my life, I had to make enough money never to have to queue up in the rain for my pension. That’s the least well off I ever wanted to be.
As my time behind the counter progressed I would stay on at the shop for as long as I could until the last possible minute before I had to leave to go to school. The shop was now my life, whereas school was quickly becoming the villain of the piece, a place I attended just because I had to, a mere interruption to my busy working day.
As far as I was concerned I was learning more of what I needed to know about life and how to get on at the shop every weekday morning and evening, all day Saturday as well as Sunday up until lunchtime, than I ever could from my lessons. If I could have left school there and then I would have done. School had taught me all it could by now and in my opinion had taken up far too much of my time in the process.
Top 10 Treats (#ulink_6ce7af5d-b4cd-53b0-9b62-dd71a95f5d0c)* (#ulink_7ce58258-7d10-569e-947a-0fe758a6de79)
10 Mint cracknel
9 Ice Breaker
8 Cough candy
7 Cola cubes
6 Refreshers
5 Black Jacks/Fruit Salad mix
4 Texan
3 Merry Maids chocolate caramels
