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[Finance] How big was your paper round?



Barrow Boy

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Nov 2, 2007
5,812
GOSBTS
Back in 1966 I had two rounds (morning/evening) with Oakleys newsagents on the Upper Shoreham Road opposite Southlands Hospital. Morning one used to take about 35/40 mins (Hour on Sunday) and the evening one about 45 mins. Used to get 11 shillings for each round making a total of £1-10 in todays money.
Got a bollocking for being late for the evening round on July 30th due to watching the World Cup on telly with my Dad and the bloody West Germans taking us to extra time. I didn't mind, it was worth it!
 




Falmerfourtickets

Active member
Dec 14, 2010
227
I worked a bit in the local greengrocers , got fed up with all the old dears asking to SQUEEZE my plums. Delivered the Advertiser for a while till they found out my idea of delivering them was to lob them by the bundle into the fields off King George VI Avenue and did a morning paper round for a while which was the best of the lot especially when the papers/trains or whoever was on strike and only had to deliver a few papers that morning

I’ll tell Mr Bullen (or his decedents)
 


PTC Gull

Micky Mouse country.
NSC Patron
Apr 17, 2017
1,295
Florida
Did mine around 1970. M-F evenings. Picked up papers from the newsagent (name escapes me) half way up Preston Drove on the corner with Balfour Rd. Route was (I think) Surrenden Rd, Harrington Rd then Harrington Villas, Knoyle Rd, A 23, Varndean Rd and then odd addresses towards Tongdean Lane,. Home was Tongdean Court. Think it was about 60 deliveries.
 


Greavsey

Well-known member
Jul 4, 2007
1,166
Used to deliver The Evening Argus 6 days a week, for probably about £10 a week in the early to mid-90's. This also consisted of collecting payments on a Friday, sorting the cash and having to make up any short comings myself! Imagine asking a 13 year old now to be a debt collector effectively!?

Also did Sunday papers for the local newsagent, requiring two bags to ensure I was balanced enough not to fall off my bike due to the weight of those buggers!

Never worked so hard since as when I was a teenager!
 


ozzygull

Well-known member
Oct 6, 2003
4,159
Reading
Delivered the Evening Argus around 1987 in Hangleton. I used my BMX to get around. I don't remember how many. There was some flats on the triangle bit of the junction that drops down to Hove Park Lower School and the houses down Hangleton Road towards Old Shoreham road. I remember Thursday's being the heaviest. Think I got about £6.50 a week
 




Iggle Piggle

Well-known member
Sep 3, 2010
5,948
Probably a very similar route to the one my missus used to do as she grew up in Brentwood Close, and did it for the shop in the Dip. Her mum still lives there.

I had a paper round over in Patcham at the Carden Avenue newsagents - delivering all the way up Portfield Road to Ladies Mile Road - and taking in Morecombe, Tangmere, Singleton, Haywards, and Carden Crescent. Probably a good 50-60 papers which were bloody heavy. Always had a massive crush on the woman at the end of Morecombe Rd too that I used to talk to....she a was a MILF before the term even existed!

Always wanted my boy to get a paper round, but at 16 hes gone straight into a part time job at the Marina McDonalds while hes at VIth form. Just got a pay rise & promotion after 6 months, so is on about £8.50 an hour now. Not going to complain at that.

I grew up in Brentwood Crescent and did a paper round for Jennies corner in the dip. (May have been Nortons at one stage). Blakes was the other one which seemed to have more custom which was fine by me! I used to run round that route. Took too long to walk and get ready for school.
 




PILTDOWN MAN

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Sep 15, 2004
19,592
Hurst Green
Mine was in Horsham 73-76 and I had a cleaning job. I delivered in Orchard Road, Macleod Rd, Elm Grove, Bethune, Eversfield and Bennett's Roads and then a few up in Compton's Lane. Huge bags of papers and double run to shop on Sunday's!

My uncle and aunt lived in Bennett’s Rd
 




Hamilton

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 7, 2003
12,953
Brighton
I didn’t have a paper round but I did prepare all the bundles of leaflets that went out to the paper boys and girls who were delivering the Brighton & Hove Leader. I had to weigh them all out. 100s of thousands of them. Just so my contemporaries could try and throw them straight in the bins. But we were watching!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


Madafwo

I'm probably being facetious.
Nov 11, 2013
1,725
I did one from the Valley Drive shop adjacent to Withdean Stadium from about 75-79. The shop owner was a good sort, do you remember his name? Every morning, 364 days a year. The round was Tongdean Lane/Tongdean Rise. Not too long (30 papers?) but lots of hills and steps. I'd then go home and get the coal in(!), breakfast and school at Fawcett.

I got whacked (clipped round the ear) by a red-faced postie for refusing to deliver some of his mail. Despite there being a witness, he got off with a warning.

Long before my time, from memory that newsagent shut by the time I was old enough to do a round, this was the newsagent near the top of Valley Drive that turned into a food shop I think.

I didn’t have a paper round but I did prepare all the bundles of leaflets that went out to the paper boys and girls who were delivering the Brighton & Hove Leader. I had to weigh them all out. 100s of thousands of them. Just so my contemporaries could try and throw them straight in the bins. But we were watching!

I did this as well for a short time, all of a couple of weeks before they binned everyone off to be delivered direct from Southampton.
 


Dave the OAP

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
46,761
at home
Not a paper round but a milk round.

When I lived in Wiltshire, I was 14 and was a assistant on a milk round that meant I arrived at the farm/ dairy at 5 am and off we drove in a milk float and I got back to the farm at 12:00. We went bloody miles around melksham up country and I got 50p for what was the equivalent of a 7 hour day Ona Saturday and I received .50 p a day during the school holidays when I worked Monday to Saturday 7 hours a day.

Looking back on it god knows how the farmer got away with that!
 




Bry Nylon

Test your smoke alarm
Helpful Moderator
Jul 21, 2003
20,572
Playing snooker
I didn't have a paper round but when I was 14 I cleaned the ladies showers at the local tennis club for £5 a day.

Not a lot of money by todays standards, but it was all I could afford back then.
 


Weststander

Well-known member
Aug 25, 2011
69,238
Withdean area
I didn't have a paper round but when I was 14 I cleaned the ladies showers at the local tennis club for £5 a day.

Not a lot of money by todays standards, but it was all I could afford back then.

I remember the subsequent court case in The Argus. Clever the way those cameras were hidden in the suspended ceiling.
 


portlock seagull

Well-known member
Jul 28, 2003
17,776
I didn't have a paper round but when I was 14 I cleaned the ladies showers at the local tennis club for £5 a day.

Not a lot of money by todays standards, but it was all I could afford back then.

:clap::lolol:
 




kroqq

Active member
Mar 28, 2013
179
Worked for Salmon’s in Patcham Old Village, my round included HAS & North, Overhill etc, probably 39 houses all marked on a card with stick back plastic as protection and abbreviation of the address on the top corner of the paper in pencil.

When I started there were very few supplements and the News of the World was a broad sheet. Got payed £2.50 7 days a week starting at 6:30am, welcomed by Jeff with his cigar smoke every morning.

Me too. Early/Mid 80s. Arrive 630 to see Jeff with his cigar along with his sister. Mary? I cant remember. My round was a nightmare. Old London Road (first paper was Wooten house to Des Lynams bachelor pad!) ending all the way up at the RSPCA at Braypool. For £6 a week! At least 40 papers. Sunday a nightmare (we had to deliver loads of the Sunday supplements on Saturday just so we could lift the bags!)
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
62,400
Location Location
What a great thread.

For my part, I covered a mates paper round for a week once, when he and his family went away on holiday. A brutal 6.00am start at Graham Avenue around the hills and beacons of Mile Oak, which pissed me off no end, culminating in a Sunday with all the broadsheets and magazines that weighed a fookin' TON. And I think I got about £12 at the end of it. Needless to say that was the end of my paper-rounding. My dad would slip me a tenner for washing the car, and my half-arsed effort barely took half an hour.

Paper rounds were for MUGS.
 


Jordy

Exiled Seagull
Dec 1, 2009
216
Monday to Friday done 40ish houses, Saturday would come and would need two bags. Bike packed up after 6months of doing it so ended up walking my round and never got my bike sorted. Done it for 3 years.

Also had a Sunday round for 2 of those years for another shop until it closed, that round was 60-70 houses and they gave us all a wooden wheelbarrow with a lid to keep them dry to push round. Used to take a good 2 maybe 3 hours to do that one, but did get something like £7 compared to the Mon-Sat which paid just shy of £10.
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
62,400
Location Location
Bloody hell. Going by this, half of NSC appears to have grown up in Victorian England.
 






Stat Brother

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
73,888
West west west Sussex
Bloody hell. Going by this, half of NSC appears to have grown up in Victorian England.
While their children grow up in some kind of free money Eutopia.


We're doomed I tells yer, doomed.
 


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