Read All About It !!

I was up early yesterday, taking the car yet again in the vain hope that the garage might actually get around to fixing it. Normally, we're late birds so 7am is the middle of the night for me but there I was, up and about, marvelling that others were also; and some even looking awake!

As I sauntered home, I noticed a paper boy and my thoughts travelled back to my days as one of this forgotten army.

It was great when I first started at the tender age of 11. The summer was here and, in that first week, I strode around, bag swinging jauntily on my skinny shoulder, merrily pushing the Daily Sketch etc. through a variety of apertures and dreaming of what I would buy with my 11/6d per week. It all went downhill after that. My Mother explained that, as I was now working, pocket money was a thing of the past, and it started raining.

Levering myself out of bed and squelching around with a bag-full of soggy papers seemed rather different from the envisaged life of financial and geographical freedom but I soldiered gamely on, discovering the lesser known aspects of newspaper delivery. Why did spiders always have to spin huge webs across gateways? Why were paperbags made of totally unyelding canvas? Why did letterbox manufacturers take such delight in fitting such strong springs? Most of all, why did people have to go on holiday?

The shop owner always marked the numbers on the papers but, no matter how many times I checked, I would often end up finding No. 25's Mirror as I wandered up to No. 23 (Financial Times). There then followed a frantic backtrack trying to find out where I'd gone wrong and, hoping against hope, that everybody was still asleep and I could rescue the situation. Of course, Life isn't like that but I got used to the reproachful look as I turned up at the shop next morning. Like anything, I got used to the paper round but there were three moments of recall that spring specifically to mind:

First was the introduction of supplements; this was a dreadful morning which I recall with startling clarity. In those days, there were few magazines (maybe the odd People's Friend or Womans Own) but most houses just had the one paper. I stood at the top of Carlisle Road one Friday, gazing with horror at the bag full of Telegraph supplements. Even the East German female weight-lifting gold medallist couldn't lift it it without her beard curling at the effort and, I'm ashamed to say, I just stood there and cried. I can still see a deep groove across my left shoulder where that damned bag sat but at least I was able to spend the other days of the week devising ways of escaping Fridays. Of course, none of them ever worked. I really thought I'd cracked it when I announced to my Mother (and truly believed) that I had leprosy. She coldly pointed out that athlete's foot was NOT terminal and sent me on my way.

The next episode concerned a school friend by the name of Mick Mills. Mick worked weekends at a sweet shop but had aspired to counter work. This meant that we were constantly supplied with illicit goods which he seemed to obtain in vast quantities. One winter's day at school, during the dreaded cross-country run, he offered to trade goods for the use of my woolly gloves for the duration of the run (well, walk for us sensible types!). I held out for a big payout and eventually he offered me a cigar. Now, at 12 or 13, a cigar was a thing of wonder. I had never smoked as, in those days, underage smoking was akin to serious crime and I was a born coward, but this suddenly took on a glamour all of its own. I imagined myself as a young sophisticate, lounging beside a swimming pool and surrounded by swimsuit-clad women (thanks to No. 4 Reynolds Road's Reveille magazine at which I furtively peeked each week).

The deal was done and I then faced the next problem - where did I smoke it? As I've said, petty crime was not something that was part of our life (unless you were Mick Mills) and I had visions of several Mk. X Jaguars, with blue lights flashing, turning up and me being slung into clink, with my parents turning up occasionally to tell me what a disappointment I was to them.

Of course! The obvious time was 6.30 in the morning on my paper round with nobody about and the fresh air dissipating the aroma of evidence. I carefully unscrewed the cap and pulled the cigar from its metal canister. Clamping what seemed like a small torpedo between my lips, I lit it and went on my way.

For a while, I felt grown-up and still retained the memory of the swimsuit-clad women but, as time passed, I became conscious that a) they took a long time to smoke and, b) I was starting to feel rather ill. I finally got home not only with the usual grime of newsprint on my hands but an interesting green complexion to my face. I guess, at the time, I should have given up on tobacco but I was never one to learn lessons very quickly!

The third memory is far more pleasant. I guess I was about 13 and my whole experience of the opposite sex was limited to a traumatic episode at the age of about 6 and a well-thumbed copy of Health & Efficiency which had been doing the rounds at school. The former was attributable to Veronica, the girl next door, who offered me the chance of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" and then reneged on the deal once it came to her turn. The latter confused me for years due to the considerable use of airbrushing. As far as I was concerned, naked women had breasts but absolutely nothing else of interest to a young schoolboy.

This all changed one morning as I blearily trudged up yet another of the seemingly endless paths to deliver another instalment of the continuing follies of the Viet-Nam war. As I plucked the paper from its cosy nest, I noticed a movement through the front windows and was greeted with the sight of a real woman.....naked! I stood transfixed as she wandered around her kitchen, oblivious (presumably) to my presence. I took in the the realities gleaned from my foray into Health & Efficiency but then got totally confused by the seeming inaccuracies. She soon disappeared to another room but it was a moment of pubescent revelation to me and I always quickened my steps as I neared her home subsequently.

To that lady, whoever she was, Thank You. It certainly beat sex education at school (unless you had a fetish about frogs) and almost made several years of early morning drudgery worthwhile. It sure as hell beat cigars!