OUR OLD JIMMY

One autumn, when we were 13 years old, my brother and I got a bit of
news, which was to change our lives: A chance to take over a newspaper
round. The hot tip came from fat Dick James, an acquaintance who
inspired jealousy with his vast amounts of pocket money (spent on
sweets, porkpies and fish suppers), derived from his lucrative round of
newspaper delivery. Dick told us that Tom, who also delivered, was
"thinking of quitting; on the brink of the sack" (delete whichever is
not applicable).

Indeed, it transpired that Tom was thinking of "chucking it," because
his bike was always breaking down, but we learned later that he was
also oversleeping, never maintaining his bike and was always
happy-go-lucky irresponsible (eg., if he was late finishing his round,
he never finished it off in the evenings, but simply threw the papers
away.)

Anyway, my brother and I went to see the boss, old Jimmy Morrison. All
deliveries were directly executed from old Jimmy's tiny newspaper-
filled kitchen. Jimmy was retired. (His son, Junior, a beady-eyed,
middle-aged bachelor, ran a newsagent shop, which we never saw.)

In his prime, Jimmy had a been a building foreman ("I built the house
you boys live in!") and a friend of our Granny ("how's your Granny,
Mrs. Smith getting on?")

Jimmy seemed rather glad to be getting rid of the exasperating Tom and
taking on two savvy kids instead. Anyway, we were hired on the spot for
three main reasons: First, we were both going to do work previously
done by only one boy. Second, our "Raleighs" (bicycles) were in
excellent running order. And thirdly, we suspected that our grandmother
had once been an old flame of Jimmy's.

Our basic pay was 15 shillings a week (between us) + tips, but we soon
expanded the job when word got round that "our" papers always arrived.
And we also organised the work for our ease. My brother did the bottom
half--more papers but less cycling--while I specialised in the top half
of the town--less papers but more cycling. Occasionally, we switched to
stay in touch with all the addresses. Evenings, only one of us went out
while the other got extra studying. Saturday mornings, only one went
out while the other caught up on sleep .

We were soon into a routine: Rise at 5:45 am. Jimmy's at 6.10. Truck
arrives from Glasgow with Daily Newspapers, 6:15. Sort, pack, load up,
cycle off, 6:45 am. Deliver all over town 'til 8:10 am. Cycle home.
Breakfast, 8:25. Wash face. Cycle to school, 8:50. Return from school,
4:15. Early meal. Deliver evening papers, 5 to 6:30 pm.

Six days a week. We started later on Saturdays (nobody needed a paper
before the office train) and Sunday's were long, from 8 'til 11:30
(heavy Sunday papers).

We also sped up the packing...at first Jimmy would write the full
address of the recipient (from his master code book) on top of the
relevant newspaper (7 different ones): For example, "Brown, 11
Brickford Terrace." Then these papers would be packed, in sequence, in
our heavy huge shoulder bags. Gently but persistingly, we persuaded him
to write only "Brown" or "11 Brick." Eventually, we simply memorised
all the papers and their totals (84 Daily Expresses, 17 Daily Records,
23 Morning Bulletins, etc) put them in our sacks and cycled off.

Jimmy, undoubtedly realising that he was being made "redundant,"
however, stuck to his guns about addressing the weekly magazines.
Anyway, we didn't mind, because the infrequency and variety of the
weekly magazines made them a real challenge to our memory.

These deliveries took place every day, winter and summer, rain or
shine, for 31/2 years, with occasional breaks for strikes, New Year's
Day, holidays and a summer holiday (for which we had to train a
replacement).

There were dozens of other schoolboys roaming the streets
(morning-roll delivery boys, milk delivery boys) rising, incredibly, at
3:30 or 4 am, who worked ferociously hard and spent their large wages
ferociously fast.
We soon got to know all the denizens of that town in the dark morning
hours. Proud working men in boiler suits going off to the shipyards,
tire- eyed people coming off of night shifts, ladies, going to clean
the school classrooms.

Our relationship with Dick was a mixture of close friendliness
alternating with veiled annoyance. Dick, unbeknown to us at the time,
got an extra 5 shillings for picking up the evening newspaper bundle
from the railway station, but he took the liberty of delivering half of
his papers on the way back to the kitchen, where we fretted to get
started.

He would then pour salt in our wounds by saying, "Are you going along
Eglinton Street? Could you drop off these 2 on the way?" After which,
he whistled his way home with an empty bag, just as we set out.