McKelvie’s Paper Round
My greatest desire as a young boy growing up in those hard days immediately at the close of World War II, was to be financially independent.
The vision of having money of your own in your own pocket was a vision that captured me. I was eight years old at the time when I decided to get a job with a regular income.
The means became available in an unexpected way. Just before my father died he organised my Christmas present. There was no boy in Box Hill more proud on Christmas morning than I, when I discovered this magnificent two wheeler bicycle. I had tried riding other boys’ bikes but they were too big for my short legs. But my father arranged for me to have a 24 inch wheel bike which suited me just fine.
I did not realise at the time that the bike was not new. Nothing was new in those days of shortages immediately after the war. Rationing was still in force and coupons had to be traded for half a pound of butter or a pound of sugar or petrol to drive the car. There was a shortage of everything including pushbikes. But somewhere or other my father had found this bike with 24 inch wheels. He took it to Templeton’s Bike Shop where I used to hang around by the double doors that opened onto the side lane leading to the back of our shop. The Templeton men were keen bike riders and local stars at the Box Hill cycle track. They had spray painted the bike bright red and a sign writer had written in beautiful script down the bar “Moyes Special”.
There was no other bike like it. It was unique. It was beautiful. It was my means to mobility, freedom, and the opportunity to earn.
In the central square of shops in the heart of our town of Box Hill was McKelvie’s newsagency. Mr. McKelvie was a big, genial man who always wore shirts with short sleeves and had a wide smile and a happy greeting for everyone. He was a hard working man rising early in the morning to bring in the bundles of newspapers dropped off from the delivery trucks and to put into their neat piles the stacks of “Sun News Pictorial”, “The Age”, “The Herald”, “The Sporting Globe”, “The Weekly Times”, “The Argus”, and the magazines that used to be delivered for weekly sale.
The day after Boxing Day I rode my bike down to Mr. McKelvie and asked him for a job on a paper round. He was sorry but I was too young and too small. I could never manage a paper round.
I went home and told my mother that Mr. McKelvie said I could have a paper round when I got a proper sack to hang over the horizontal bar of my bike. She made one out of a sugar bag with two slits in the side so that you could put the papers in even bundles on both sides. I went back to Mr. McKelvie and told him that I had the saddle bags ready and I was ready as soon as he had a position available.
Mr. McKelvie laughed and said that if my regularity was as good as my persistence he would be prepared to give me a job. I was not sure what he meant but I told him that I would always be there. Persistence paid off and before long another boy failed to arrive regularly and I had my first paying job.
That first paper round was a good one. There were few hills. It was mainly in and around the immediate shopping area where I knew almost everybody. The only problem was that when I filled the sugar bags with the folded newspaper they stuck out so wide that I had to ride my bike with my legs spread eagled and every time I went round a corner the weight of the newspapers would pull the bike over and I would tumble on the asphalt.
I soon learnt to negotiate corners and to ride with my knees wide apart.
The round I had was very interesting. There were many nice ladies who used to take pity on the smallest boy riding the shortest bike, and they would frequently give me good tips. I soon worked out which lady responded when, instead of poking their paper into their letter box I took it up and placed it inside the front wire door. Very soon those who enjoyed having dry papers on wet days began to show their appreciation with good tips.
I used to call on Saturday mornings to get payment for the week’s supply of papers and write in my book the amounts given. Those who paid me the exact amount of money and gave no tip got their paper shoved in their letter box or, occasionally just thrown over the fence onto the lawn. Those who admired good service and rewarded extra effort always had their newspaper delivered inside their front door. As most front doors in those days had a brass mail deliver slot in the centre of the front door, their paper was delivered right into their hallways.
If a person received the morning and the evening paper six days a week the cost was three shillings, with sixpence for delivery which meant that most people would give me four shillings, meaning I made sixpence profit at each house. Some people gave me five shillings which meant a tip of one and six. Some people also would have a magazine. How we envied those people wealthy enough to afford every week, one copy of either “The Women’s Weekly” or the “New Idea” or the “Weekly Times”, or those few extraordinarily wealthy people who received a monthly copy of “The National Geographic” or “The Popular Mechanics” magazine. I always found that if I took care of their magazines that resulted in a good tip.
There was one man on my round who gave me bigger tips than anyone else and for several weeks gave me five shillings. He had no family. He was a very friendly man to young boys and he ran a most unusual milk bar in town. I did not understand all the implications but the bigger boys used to say that if you went into his milk bar and waited until no one else was in there, you could buy from him magazines which he kept under the counter which were for “men only”.
I was told on good authority that if you waited until he was alone and gave the secret password “dig deep into the biscuit barrel” then for ten shillings he would sell you four French letters. I did not understand why older teenage boys showed so much interest in literature of a language they could not understand.
One hot day I called at his house to pick up the weekly paper money and when he came to the door he was standing there with nothing on completely naked except for a little bit of cloth which they called a “g string”. He invited me in for a cool drink and said he wanted to give me ten shillings tip that day.
I do not remember my mother giving me warnings about such situations but instinctively alarm bells rang in my head. I made some excuse about having to hurry away and left his door as quickly as possible. From that moment on I left his paper at the front gate and I never went to his door, not even to pick up his money, ever again.
I do not know what it is that sets off the alarm signals inside a child’s mind but I do know that on that day the alarm bells rang. It was a kind of inner moral guidance. It is a pity that at some time during life we cease to take notice and it ceases to become an effective warning system in adult life.
I pondered these questions of how we were guided into doing what was right and what was wrong as I rode my red “Moyes Special” home up Bank Street, along the railway line to the top of the hill and to No.5 Miller Street, Box Hill, a great city that was still a village where the adults were kind, and the children grew up responsibly.
GORDON MOYES
