We bought our first colour TV on hire purchase, complete with miraculous push buttons to switch between the three television channels. In Blue Peter on BBC 1, Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves showed me how to make an Apollo spacecraft from toilet rolls and silver milk-bottle tops. I wept when Freda, the Blue Peter tortoise, didn’t make it through the winter in a cardboard box held together by sticky back plastic.
Then came our first black-and-white portable TV, clunky and bright red, with a handle on top. My big brother would use it to watch Little House on the Prairie in secret in the sitting room (hard men were not supposed to care about the trials of Laura Ingalls). Meanwhile, my wee brother would watch Romper Room on UTV, waiting excitedly for Miss Helen to see him through her magic mirror and say his name at the end of every programme. My granny kept a tally of Irish-sounding names, to check if Miss Helen was seeing more Catholics than Protestants.
It was the electrifying age of Doctor Who with the long scarf who travelled in the TARDIS through time and space to save the universe. The Thunderbirds blasted off from Tracy Island to save the world, and Ian Paisley shouted a lot down a microphone at the City Hall to save Ulster.
My mother watched old people in a pub on Coronation Street on UTV, and fancied Tom Jones when he sang ‘The Green Green Grass of Home’ on BBC 1. The appeal of both was lost on me. I rarely pushed the BBC 2 button, but my father did and he watched long documentaries and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, laughing hysterically when the posh Englishmen wore dresses, talked in high-pitched voices and did silly walks. The family was safe and happy, and everyone was still alive, apart from my other granda.
Parallel trousers were the fashion statement to die for, and tartan turn-ups and trouser legs were savagely shortened to every shin on the Shankill. Platform shoes were all the rage, and you would sprain your ankle for the sake of style when you jumped a fence and landed awkwardly in dog’s dirt after raiding old Mr Butler’s orchard, even though your mother had told you to ‘leave the poor oul’ fella alone because he was bad with his nerves’.
The Co-op Superstore in town was always on fire, while the chippy down the road was always open. Familiar smells were the hint of Tayto Cheese & Onion crisps on the breath, the whiff of vinegar from warm fish suppers in fresh newspapers, and an aromatic mix of Brut aftershave, Benson & Hedges cigarettes and burning double-decker buses that often hung heavy in the air.
For me, those years followed a familiar pattern, punctuated by School Term, Summer Holidays, the Eleventh Night, the Twelfth of July, Hallowe’en and Christmas Day. The changing seasons diverted my attention from pencil sharpeners to candy floss, from flags and bonfires to sparklers and Santa. Every week followed a well-trodden path too, like an experienced paperboy doing his rounds. School started again every Monday, Scouts was on Wednesdays, Top of the Pops was on Thursdays, the Europa Hotel got blown up on Fridays, the Westy Disco was on Saturdays, and on the seventh day I had to have a bath and go to Sunday school.
Life was action-packed and fast-moving, like an episode of Starsky and Hutch. We had thirty-minute school classes and five-minute bomb warnings. One minute, I would be in the classroom learning about the transverse section of an earthworm and the next I was in the playground learning about girls and perfecting the lead guitar section of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. If I wasn’t being good by having a jumble sale for the Biafran babies or going to ‘wee meetin’s’ to sing songs about Jesus, then I was being bad by bullying a wee ginger boy with National Health glasses or going to discos with rock-and-roll songs about sex and drugs and other things I didn’t know how to do.
But as soon as I was employed, all of these distractions melted into the background of my existence. Being a paperboy took top priority. It was my vocation, so it was. Oul’ Mac had discovered me. He had entrusted me with a great responsibility, and I was determined to fulfil the potential he had clearly discerned in my candid blue eyes, skinny four-foot frame and stringy, straight black hair.
Every night when Oul’ Mac arrived in our street with the papers, he would fling open the double doors at the back of the van and jump up inside to dispense both papers and judgement. We paperboys held our collective breath. This was Oul’ Mac’s stage and if a customer had complained or if your paper money hadn’t added up, a gritty drama would unfold. I witnessed several summary sackings at the van doors, when the guilty faced the humiliation of having to hand over their paperbags in front of their former colleagues. Oul’ Mac would snatch the bag roughly from the dirty-handed guilty one, who would then run down the street, telling him where he could stick his paper round.
Your paperbag was an important tool of the trade. Actually, it was the only one. On my first day, I was handed a clean white canvas bag, strong enough to hold a hundred Tellys. As my career progressed, the ever-darkening colour of my bag was a testament to my level of experience as a paperboy.
On my first night Oul’ Mac handed me a database of my customers. It was a list of street numbers scrawled on the back of one of the dirty wee paper sweetie bags he used for the humbugs he sold in the shop.
‘This is my mission if I choose to accept it,’ I thought, imagining I was an American spy being sent out on Mission Impossible. I followed the numbers on the dirty wee paper bag as seriously as any secret agent hoping to crack a code to stop evil Russians from trying to take over the world. I criss-crossed the streets between odd numbers and even numbers, identifying target letterboxes and then launching paper missiles through them.
Some customers had impressive shiny brass numbers screwed onto their front doors, while others had simply painted their house number on a gatepost with some white gloss paint left over from painting the skirting board in their hall. Some of the houses had lush botanical gardens, while others had paved over the grass to park a motorbike. I learned that some gates were there to keep dogs and small children in and must always be closed, while other gates were for impressing the neighbours or just for swinging on.
On my virgin paper round, I was tentative and careful, just feeling my way. It was my first time, so I jumped no fences and closed all gates. It took me a while to work out exactly how to fold the paper and insert it correctly into the letterbox.
I smiled at all my customers, even at the ones who scowled back, like Mr Black from No. 13, who felt compelled to comment: ‘They’ll be delivering your paper in a pram next!’
I wanted to develop good customer relations from the outset. I met Mrs Grant from No. 2 at her front gate. She was just back from the shops with a bagful of pigs’ trotters from the butchers and a prescription from the chemist for her Richard’s throat. I opened her gate and offered to carry her shopping bags.
‘Och, thank you, love,’ she said, ‘I’m late for the dinner and my Richard’s in bed with his throat.’
‘I’m the new paperboy,’ I proclaimed proudly.
‘Och, that’s lovely, love. Close the gate after you,’ Mrs Grant replied.
I could tell we were going to have an excellent customer/supplier relationship. My mind was already drifting towards an assessment of Mrs Grant’s tip potential. My big brother said the good tippers would tell you to keep the change, while the ‘stingy bastards’ would expect every last halfpenny, even at Christmas.
My first few papers were awkwardly folded and ended up a little torn around the edges, but by the time I had delivered my final Belfast Telegraph on that first night, I had become nearly competent. The last newspaper of the night was withdrawn from my paper bag, folded perfectly and delivered swiftly within a mere ten seconds.
As I bounced away from No. 102, I heard the door unbolt behind me, and then the voice of Mrs Charlton with the Scottish accent calling: ‘Och, that’s great, love. Don’t forget my Sunday Post – and will you bring my bin round the back on a Wednesday, and I’ll give you 10p for a wee 99 from the poke man?’
Mrs Charlton had ‘good tipper’ written all over her.
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