Car-assisted paper rounds

[Amanda P]

What's that all about then?

When I were a lad, I delivered papers six days a week in all weathers, on my bike (well, on my mum's bike actually because it had a stand and a useful thingy for carrying a full paper bag on on the front). No-one ever helped me, and a car was never at any stage involved.

I learned to deal with the weather, to get up at 6.30 every morning whether I liked it or not, to deal diplomatically with grumpy householders and an even grumpier boss. I learned self-reliance, and I earned my own pocket money.

Now I regularly see mums sitting in cars, with the engines running, while sons and daughters come and go with the papers.

Surely it costs more in fuel than the round earns if you do it that way? What is the point!!?

 

[Fnaar]

It's soft parents... see it all the time... I'm disappointed with many parents of my own age, who seem to have no sense of how or where to put boundaries for their kids or how to encourage them to be themselves, learn for themselves etc ((victor meldrew bit ends here)...
I LOVED doing a paper round when i was 13, in fact I did 2 every morning, and the newsagent had to ask me not to turn up quite so early, so's he actually had a chance to sort the papers first! The first round was in the town, fairly straightforward, the second one took me out into the countryside on me bike... think it was then that my enjoyment of quiet solitary countryside cycling took root. One old dear, 90yrs if she was a day, you had to GO INTO her living room and leave the paper on the armchair... only saw her once, never nicked nuffink neither! Just being out at 6am when there was hardly anyone about was ACE! Got another taste of it 10yrs later when 'between jobs' I did a stint as a postie. (Boreham Wood Gezza, if you read this!)
On the paper round, only once did I get my dad to help, when on a freezing wet morning, I dropped the paper bag, they got all mixed up, I was crying with the cold, and I went home with them to sort out the order... Dad offered to help, so I took him up on it... only the once, mind!

 

[Keith Oates]

Wimps! I used to do all the weekdays and then three rounds on Sunday morning, which notably included the fattest woman in Derbyshire (with the shortest nightie in Derbyshore ), a man who wore a first world war German helmet in his vegetable patch and several vicious farm collies who would wait for me to get back on my bike and then chase me for half a mile down a rutted lane, barking and snarling . As far as I recall I was paid about fifty pee for all this.

That must have been a relief!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Night Train]

I never did a paper round, or milk round.

My first 'job' was as a teaching assistant for special needs kids in a north London school I was only just 16 and was being called 'Sir'.

I think one of the reasons parents take their kids on their paper round is the fear for their kid's safety while out on their own.

 

[Amanda P]

Only three rounds on a Sunday? Looxury!

I had to sort my own papers. Until quite recently, I could remember the names and addresses of all my customers and what papers they took. Including weekly magazines. Quite sad really, but I did do the round for five years.

OK, getting away from the Four Yorkshiremen for a minute, I'm enjoying the stories of eccentric customers. I didn't actually really have any of those on my paper round, but there were some funny types I dealt with when I was a van driver for an off-licence chain around Bournemouth and Poole...

It was a BROWN van...

 

[rich p]

Our paperboy has been 'on the job' for 3 years and is rarely late. I've seen him grow up and he has never been assisted AFAIK but the girl who also passes by has a car with a parent every time it rains. Pah!

I did a round as a kid for a year and got ten bob a week. I once lost the 10 bob note on the way home. I was heartbroken. I still haven't quite got over it 39 years later.

 

[Amanda P]

I started on £3.90 a week.

I, too, lost my pay packet on the way home once, so I know just how you feel. I guess we both learned something important from that experience.

 

[domtyler]

I used to do a paper round, it was in a small rural village in Somerset. I doubt I ever even saw a car, apart from the time when I hurtled round the corner into someone's drive and crashed straight into the milk van that was reversing out!

Nowadays it would be totally different with cars hammering it up and down through the village at all hours of the day and night. I know I wouldn't want my kids having to deal with all that for the sake of a few measly quid.

 

[longers]

I was going to post a very similar thread tonight after seeing the same girl being driven for the umpteenth day on my new route to work!

I only had one paper round, delivering the local free paper once a week, as I bottled up in the pub every morning. That was a good job - free crisps and bottles of coke occasionally.
I can't remember what it paid but the paperround was a fiver a week .

 

[Fnaar]

I got £1 per week for one of my rounds, and £1.30 for the other (longer route). 1975, this was.

 

[spandex]

A friend of mine dose his sons paper round in the car when its cold, wet, dark and if he was still in bed!!!

 

[Maz]

A friend of mine dose his sons paper round in the car when its cold, wet, dark and if he was still in bed!!!

Impossible, mate. You can't do a paper-round from the comfort of your own bed.

 

[postman]

After being a paper boy.I got promoted to Postman.Better pay (only just).

 

[surfgurl]

The youngest Surf boy has a paper round delivering the local rag on a weekend. He get £15 for 3 hours work delivering 180 papers.
When he first started the round Mr Surf went with him in the car. They parked up at the end of each street and Mr Surf sent the boy off with his papers. The second week the youngest Surf boy got a shock as his Dad refused to go out in the car with him. That paper round took all day and many tantrums before it was over.
After a couple of months Surf boy stopped moaning about it. "I've got too many papers. It's too heavy. I'm tired" etc. He realised that we were not going to give into him and ferry him about delivering papers on a Saturday morning. I think Mr Surf saying well I'll do the round and have the money was a bit of an incentive. Mr Surf worked out he could pay the higher purchase on a new motorbike with the paperound!

 

[numbnuts]

Every day I see a mother and her son delivering the evening paper .......... in a bloody Range Rover