Chapter 11: Paper Round

Brown’s Shop was a small shop on Finnart Street, not far from the top of Madeira Street. Academy pupils frequented it at lunchtimes and it was also the shop where we spent our weekly pocket money. I suppose we’d be about five or six when we discovered that other children got pocket money. Dad started a regular pocket money handout of threepence a week. A threepenny bit—pronounced “thruppenny bit”—was a distinctive, twelve-sided, square edged, yellow metalled coin equivalent to three old pennies. Dad increased this to sixpence a week as we got older, then it became a shilling, two shillings, two and six (or half a crown), five shillings and ultimately, around the age of ten or twelve, it went up to ten shillings, which felt like a substantial amount because it often came as a ten shilling note instead of coins. At Brown’s shop you could ask Mrs Brown to bring out the penny tray, on which there were McCowan’s Highland toffee caramels with their distinctive green tartan and white wax paper wrappings and other interesting sweets, including one that looked like a miniature white spaceship. You could buy packets of Spangles (square shaped boiled sweets), ‘Beech Nut’ chewing gum, Sherbet, Liquorice, Black Jacks, circular discs of home-made tablet, or a packet of sweetie cigarettes with a spot of red food colouring on the end, which you licked to make it look brighter, like the glowing end of a real cigarette. We used to ’smoke’ them—holding the thin white ciggy stick between first and second fingers and pretend we were taking a drag, the way we saw grown-ups doing! You could also buy a ‘lucky bag’, which had several sweets in it plus a surprise gift—usually a cheap plastic trinket. I once got a plastic ring with a skull on it, which allowed me to imagine I was a pirate when I wore it.

When I was about eleven or twelve, I got the chance of a paper round at Brown’s Shop. The older boy who was finishing up showed me the ropes and took me round for a week before he left. His key piece of advice to me was “always eat something before you come out.” Later, James got a paper round there as well, so we both used to get up at six o’clock every morning to do our paper rounds before going home and getting changed for school. We used to walk or cycle to the shop in the early morning through silent streets in the yellow light of the street-lamps. Usually, the bundles of newspapers were lying on the pavement outside the shop where the John Menzies (pronounced “Ming-iss”) van driver had dumped them. We cut the string with a penknife (I had a good sharp one with a pearl handle), then counted and sorted the various papers into wide canvas bags, which we then shouldered and set off on our round. The papers had the distinctive smell of printer’s ink and by the end of the round, our thumb and fingers were black where the ink had rubbed off. My round took me up to the houses on the Lyle Hill, along South Street, down to Newton Street and back along Finnart Street to the shop. On Saturday mornings, there were extra weekend papers to deliver and my round extended to Margaret Street and Newark Street. Winter mornings when the snow laid a pale yellow blanket of street-lit stillness, were a magical experience. Our footprints were the first to violate its pristine perfection.

Some mornings the John Menzies van was late, and we had to wait outside the shop until it arrived. In a house opposite the shop, there was a young man called ‘Walmsley’. We only knew him by his surname. Walmsley was a wee bit simple. He had a bald patch surrounded by a scrunch of sandy hair and lived there with his older brother. Only later did I discover his brother was a policeman. Walmsley used to leave the house around quarter-to-seven each morning, while we were fixing our papers at the shop. I am ashamed to say it, but I hatched a nasty, pre-meditated trick to play on poor unsuspecting Walmsley. I painted a bald-headed caricature of him on a piece of paper and took it with me next morning. It was still dark when we arrived at the shop. While we were waiting for the van to deliver our batch of morning papers, I found some heavy stones and an old bag of cement and carried them across the road. I piled the stones up against the gate, dumped the bag of cement over the gate and onto the path and threw the cartoon sketch of Walmsley on the path outside his front door. We hid in the dark shadows beside the shop to watch what happened when he came out. Sure enough he emerged as usual, clutching his packed lunch. When he saw the stuff lying all over the path, he about turned and went back into the house. When he came out again, instead of trying to open the gate, he took a flying leap over the low wall onto the pavement and off he went. James and I watched the whole drama with suppressed giggles. However, as I set off on my paper round, I’m sure I saw a slight movement behind the curtain of the window in Walmsley’s house.