Delivering the paper

Our Stories
By VICKI PRICE - Taranaki Daily News
Last updated 11:18 08/08/2009

MARK DWYER
Days gone by: As a 10-year-old, Don Taylor earned six shillings a week delivering the Taranaki Herald.

"The Great Depression did not treat my father kindly," says Don Taylor of his Eltham upbringing.

"He earned a minimal wage, but scraped together enough pennies to buy me a bicycle in 1938. I was a 10-year-old boy and was thrilled to have wheels, in spite of the fact it was a really old boneshaker."

A bike was an essential piece of equipment if you were a 10-year-old boy wanting a paper run in 1938 and a paper run was the most desirable thing to achieve in life, says Mr Taylor, who now lives in New Plymouth. Mr Egarr, a family friend, had notified the Taylor household that a run was becoming available and Mr Taylor's father, at the time earning five pounds a week, could see the sense in a little bit of extra earning within the family, albeit just six shillings a week.

The job was arranged and now everything hinged on the acquisition of a bike. His father soon found one.

"He bought an old, painted-up, less-than-attractive, uncomfortable, second-hand machine for next to nothing," recalls Mr Taylor, "It had a fixed gear ratio suited more to an adult than a boy and featured the mandatory bell and 12-inch strip of white paint plus red reflector on the rear mudguard. The seat was as hard as a rock and the light fitting had to be continuously pulled around to face forward when being used at night. But it was a bike!"

The lad delivering the Taranaki Herald on Mr Taylor's new run had been called up to the navy, but showed Don what to do before he left. It was a 10-mile (16-kilometre) run delivering 32 newspapers six days a week and included visiting the homes on Saturday mornings to collect payment for the newspaper office. Mr Taylor collected the money and signed a card held by each customer.

"Clearly the six shillings I received was for six delivery runs and didn't include any payment for the seventh trip. That was the way it was done in those days. The newspaper company had its payments gathered at no cost to itself!"

Don's mother sewed up a sugar sack to hold the newspapers and attached a rope so it could hang over his shoulder or the handlebars of his bike. The bike's rear carrier was filled with an oilskin coat and a sou'wester (an oilskin hat) for rainy days. Don was ready for action.

After playing some after- school rugby or a quick round of marbles, Don would hurry home to enjoy the afternoon tea his mother always laid out on the bench for him before starting his paper run. The bus delivering the newspapers arrived in Eltham at 4.10pm. After the newsagent had cut the string, counted the papers and kept his share to sell over the counter, Don loaded his bike and was off, usually by 4.30.
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Traffic wasn't too great a hazard to Don, partly because he had a light on his bike, but also because there wasn't much of it in Eltham in the 1930s.

"In those days, people walked to and from work or rode their bicycles. Most, of course, couldn't afford to own a motor vehicle."

There were four customers who lived just out of town. One of these deliveries added 10 minutes to the run. But if Mr Taylor was lucky, he would catch two young ladies on their way home from work who cycled past this house to their own homes farther on, and they would deliver the paper for him.

"The customer was a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party and I could never understand why there were never any expressions of thanks from him for a worker. He must have known that his delivery alone added quite a bit to my time and effort." Mr Taylor says.

Norm Tinney, a butcher at the local freezing works, could usually be found each afternoon on the same barstool at the Coronation Hotel. If not, Mr Taylor had to travel to his house, which was right out on the southern boundary to the town.

"In winter, an added benefit for me not having to travel to his residence came at the moment I handed him his paper. Unfailingly, he reached for the plate of hot counter lunch set out for the bar customers and offered me a piece. This was a very welcome and warming snack on the really cold days."

Each week, the six shillings was divided up into three portions: one for Scout payments, one for the Saturday matinee and the other for savings. By the end of the first year, Mr Taylor had saved enough for a deposit on the new model Phillips bicycle.

"It had a crossbar which curved under the stylishly shaped saddle and the mudguards were shaped into four ridges rather than being in a plain curve. It was painted a modern, dark shade of red and, joy of joys, the gear wheel had been designed to cope easily with cycling about town. It was easier to pedal, was more comfortable to ride and had a dynamo fitted to drive a stylishly designed front light."

A lasting impression for Mr Taylor was the pink, red, orange, gold and blue colours of the sky over Eltham as the sun sank behind Mt Taranaki. During still evenings he admired the smoke rising in tall, thin columns over the town as residents lit their coal and wood burners to cook the evening meal. Unfortunately, the smoke soon thickened and settled into a layer that blanketed the town, obliterating the beautiful sunset. But nights when the moon and stars rose clear and bright, as Don switched on his bike's headlamp to deliver his next paper, were a heavenly scene forever fixed in his memory.