[The Paper Round: (approx.) February–July 1998 (Mondays–Saturdays)]
I got my first regular Job at the age of 14 because we’d moved from North Wales to The Hog County in the South of England and I wanted to save up enough money to go back to North Wales in the summer holidays to see the girl I was in love with ("TGIWILW", which is an unsatisfactory acronym, which I will hereafter replace with Tigwillow).
I still received no Pocket Money. We probably had no money, generally. We were renting The Stopgap Flat: a second-or-third-floor, two-bedroom flat, overlooking a railway line in the suburbs of The English Cathedral City where my father was now working, and had been working for about four months (since the end of The Long Summer of Blair’s Landslide) before we—my mother, my younger brother and I—followed him down. Much to my dismay, our border collie had to go and live with somebody else until our lease expired and we found a house with a garden for which we could afford a Mortgage. My oldest brother was by then 17, and had gone to live with our West Midlands aunt and uncle in the West Midlands. My older brother, 16, had chosen to stay in North Wales with our North Wales aunt and uncle to continue with the A-levels he’d just begun (and would never finish). At 14 I was too young to be offered such choices, and too young to be told why we’d really moved to England—by anyone except my oldest brother, who I already knew by this time could be something of an Unreliable Narrator.
Over time I’d come to think of this move from Wales to England as The Rupture, and to blame anything that went wrong in my life on it—if not necessarily its architects. But before it actually happened, my excitement initially counterbalanced any trepidation I felt about the move, because the news made me the focus of attention for a while at The Big School. People thought it was “cool” that I was moving to England (which I diplomatically chose not to interpret as a slight) and since I was technically English and not Welsh—and had been reminded of this regularly enough over the 14 years I’d lived in Wales—I decided to believe that I was going home; even though I’d not lived in England since I was a baby, and had never seen The English Cathedral City, or—as far as I was aware—any cathedral city except for The Oldest City in North Wales, where I’d recently begun studying for my GCSEs.
There were schools in England too though. And even though I had to drop Welsh and Sociology, I could do the rest of my GCSEs (plus “D&T: Graphic Products”, whatever the hell that was) at one of these. So I’d bade farewell to my schoolfriends, my school nonfriends, and my nonschool friends at a somewhat maudlin winter party hosted in the cold room at the back of The Villa; which party I don’t remember very well because I was drunk and crying for most of it. I still have a scar on the second knuckle of the middle finger of my right hand, where I cut it open that night by falling over after running down our gravel driveway and swerving to avoid one of my schoolfriends at the last moment. This would thenceforth serve as a (quite literally) handy Memento of The Rupture.
The Stopgap Flat in The English Cathedral City wasn’t a bad place to live. But, having got quite used to living in The Villa during my early adolescence—with my own bedroom, a sea view, no near neighbours, and about five square miles of deindustrialized rural wilderness as a de facto back garden—it was something of a rude awakening to suddenly find myself sharing a box room in a foreign country with my relentlessly positive nine-year-old brother. By contrast, I had become a pretty negative person by this time. I wanted to be alone with my regrets and my Morrissey cassettes. And he wanted me to play with him.
I don’t think I ever asked my parents for money. But I probably mumbled something self-pitying about never being able to see any of my friends in North Wales again. And my father probably wasn’t there to hear me. And my mother, I recall, suggested that I get on my (metaphorical) bike: there was a note in the nearby newsagent’s window advertising for paperboys, she said. I’d played a knock-off copy of “Paperboy” using the ZX Spectrum emulator on our SAM Coupé home computer several years ago. And my oldest brother had worked several paper rounds as a teenager in The Seaside Town; so I knew that this Job was something People Like Us could do—even if people like him had learned to ride a bicycle, and people like me had not. (Which was why my bike was only metaphorical.) I don’t know why I never learned to ride a bike, Prospective Employer; but nobody ever taught me, and most of the places I liked to go—woodlands, quarries, beaches, etc.—were inaccessible by bike. I suspect my older brothers sold their bikes at car-boot sales rather than hand them down to me for no personal gain.
Anyway: I went down to The Newsagent’s in The Cathedral City, with my mother, and asked for The Paper Round Job, and was given it—starting next Monday.
The Role
My mother bought me a two-wheel fold-out trolley that could be pulled with one hand, because—she said—the newspapers would be heavy; and because I couldn’t ride a bike I would have no bike to carry them on. I was glad the newspapers would be heavy, I said, and wanted them to be heavy, because carrying them would complement my existing weightlifting regime, which I had begun after moving to England—using concrete-filled, golden-hued plastic dumbbells bequeathed to me a year ago by my oldest brother when he moved to England—with a view to making myself both physically more attractive to Tigwillow (i.e. the girl I was in love with) and also better able to defend myself against anticipated bullying by boys at my new school: The Posh School. I disliked The Posh School and almost everyone in it. I found the children to be mostly posh, or otherwise mean, and was alarmed by how much taller they were on average than those in North Wales. Nobody was impressed by the Welsh I could speak, which they said was a made-up language; and when I told them I was English like them, they said no: I was Welsh. That said, the anticipated bullying never fully materialized, so I gave up weightlifting shortly after starting my first Job.
I was to be paid ten pounds a week for The Paper Round: about sixty-three pence an hour at the speed at which I delivered newspapers. But I didn’t think about it in those terms. It was summer holiday money: love money. I’d established correspondence by letter with a number of my closest friends from North Wales (all girls), and also—unexpectedly, and to my absolute delight—with Tigwillow. I’d been in love with Tigwillow for two years and four months by the time I began The Paper Round. Prior to this, I was in love with one of her friends; and prior to that with another girl at The Big School. But I reimagined my personal history to honour Tigwillow as my First Love. That latest crush in a succession of unrequited Big School crushes stuck after we shared a brief and tipsy kiss during a game of spin-the-bottle at her friend’s party when I was 12. The game was instigated by somebody else who wanted to kiss somebody else. But by the end of it most of the girls had kissed about half of the boys, and most of the boys had kissed about half of the girls. What began as an infatuation on my part, in the absence of either budding romance or an unequivocally brutal rejection, was well on its way to limerence. Tigwillow had a Speech Impediment, like I did. And although she regularly pointed out mine—in a gently mocking way—she was apparently completely unaware of her own. Once on a bus trip she’d given me a small photograph of herself. And she’d written a short, affectionate note in biro on the inside of my Adidas manager’s jacket on my last day at The Big School; the faded ink of which I’d subsequently obsess over for many hours, over many months. A combination of untested romantic idealism, protracted loneliness, and boredom—fuelled by nostalgia, pop music, and Tigwillow’s letters detailing where she’d been cycling that month and where she might go cycling next month—ensured that I remained limerent for several years, almost to the point of emotional starvation at 16 when I was able, like some parasitic instar, to transfer my hormonally motivated ruminations to another indifferent teenager who was at least living in the same country as me. With the benefit of 24 years’ hindsight, I now understand that my teenage “love” was as much hiraeth (“a longing”) for the house, the home, the country, the friends, the brothers, the life, the past, the dog—maybe even the prepubescence—that I’d left behind: all of which amalgamated to elevate a hopeless crush, which would otherwise soon have fizzled out, to the status of a private religion; which seemed the sole purpose of my existence for as long as it endured, and seemed a damnable waste of my youth once I’d finally snapped out of it.
This extensive diversion into my inner life is, in fact, relevant, Prospective Employer: because there’s no way I’d have returned to The Newsagent’s on that Tuesday for the second day of The Paper Round without the hope unwittingly provided by Tigwillow inspiring me to bear any necessary suffering that would allow me to see her again. Yes, the Paper Round was hard: I had to wake up at half past five—well before anyone else in The Stopgap Flat—shower, don my school uniform in the dark, gobble a slice of peanut butter on toast, and shuffle down to The Newsagent’s by a quarter to six in order to mark up the papers from the route roster, fill my two fluorescent paper-bags, load them onto my trolley and secure them in place with plastic-hooked bungee cords.
On the first day of The Paper Round I was two thirds of the way around my route (mostly alien territory) when I realized I was going to be late for school. I was soaked in sweat, aching all over, trembling with fear, and radiating heat from my flushed, forlorn face when I was unexpectedly rescued by a posh boy on a bicycle who I’d assumed till then probably hated me. I assumed everyone at The Posh School hated me. And I considered everyone with an RP accent—as opposed to an Estuary accent or a South English rural accent—to be posh. The posh boy on the bike was about two thirds RP to one third estuary. Both he and his non-identical twin brother had paper rounds at The Newsagent’s too. And although I’d never spoken to either of them before, and would never exactly become friends with either over the four-or-so years of our acquaintance, I will forever be grateful for his act of heroism on that Monday morning. He used to do the route. He knew where the remaining houses were, and had ten minutes to spare. It was no big deal.
From day two I knew what I was in for, which made it worse. But someone belatedly provided a map (of sorts) so I managed to deliver the lot and get to school on time—albeit soaked in sweat, aching all over, trembling with fear, and radiating heat from my flushed, forlorn face. It would have been nice if there was time to shower after The Paper Round. But there really wasn’t. I barely had minutes enough remaining after each morning’s work to scale the stairs to The Stopgap Flat, deposit my bags and trolley, swallow some cereal, grab my rucksack (which I resolutely wore over one shoulder: the “cool” way to wear a rucksack in North Wales—in fact the only way, if you didn’t want to be called “gay” and to get beaten up), tumble back out the door, clatter down the stairs, and power-walk the half a mile to the school I hated. There to spend my daylight hours with the teachers who viewed me as an inconvenience to put on the ends of other people’s desks, and the friends they’d chosen for me, who (I imagined) were probably short of friends for good reason.
From day three, The Paper Round got… not exactly easier, but more normal—as, I supposed, might prison, or any other cruel and unusual form of punishment, repression, or torture. I arrived, I collected the papers, I left. I barely spoke a word to the other paperboys, the paperman, or the papergirl. I never noticed Wayne: the paperboy who would later, for a time, become my new best friend: he got there earlier than me and had always left by the time I arrived. I continued to arrive at The Posh School exhausted and dishevelled; but my academic performance didn’t nosedive. And, as the weeks trudged by, I developed coping mechanisms for the Job that was necessary to ensure I could go back to North Wales in the summer holidays and see my real friends, and Tigwillow, again. I tinkered with the running order of my route. I discovered unknown lanes down the backs of car-parks, lawns I could cut across without being shouted at, and gaps in hedges and holes in fences that would shave precious seconds off the morning’s work—though never quite enough to allow for a shower after the Job. I’d use the weight and momentum of the trolley in my favour where I could: lugging it firmly but gently at the start of the route to avoid jettisoning the bags, and gradually manoeuvring it with more freedom and ease—even a touch of balletic grace (or so I imagined) by the time I rounded the perimeter of the Conservative Club with the trolley on one wheel, toward the final third of the route—as the sun rose above the rooftops of The Cathedral City’s terraces. I’d listen to Britpop albums, or mixtapes sent by my real friends in North Wales, or mixtapes I’d made myself—from my father’s CD collection, and my own little stack of Britpop records—on my father’s tinny old portable cassette-player, with batteries forever running down halfway through the morning; halfway through a song about Tigwillow by a singer who’d surely never met her. So I’d make up my own songs in my head for the remainder of the route, and hand-write the lyrics after school in the library—or in my bedroom, when my youngest brother was wanting me to play with him instead—and I’d fold up the sheets of A4 paper and put them in a shoebox under my bed. I couldn’t write music for these “songs” because I couldn’t play an instrument and had never owned an instrument—just like I couldn’t ride a bike and had never owned a bike. I sent select lyrics to my ex-best friend Mel outside The Village We Didn’t Live In. And the band he was in with his friends recorded songs using one or two. But they never sounded how I imagined they might.
I’d squander what little money I could spare from my holiday fund on sour sweets, high in E-numbers; but only on weekends, when I’d walk into town with my new friends—who I wasn’t sure I liked, and wasn’t sure liked me—and we’d wander the streets of The Cathedral City (their home, not mine) not delivering newspapers, and not being at school; but also not being in North Wales, and not being with my real friends, or Tigwillow.
I learnt for the first time in my life to dread Mondays. To resent Tuesdays. To endure Wednesdays. To shrug off Thursdays. To welcome Fridays. And—even though I did the same route with even heavier papers, and usually spent the rest of the time with the friends I wasn’t sure I liked, who I wasn’t sure liked me—I learnt to adore Saturdays, and to curse God (though I never otherwise thought about God) for Sundays; which no amount of rest, if any were forthcoming, would prevent from giving way to Mondays. And another aching week, unasked-for.
Good Job or Bad Job?
There was little Solidarity in The Paper Round. I made no friends and hardly ever spoke to anyone. I’ve precisely no recollection of the Bossman, except that he was a man. And the people I delivered newspapers to only acknowledged me if they wanted to complain about something. The paperboys talked excitedly about Christmas tips. But I was gone by Christmas, so I never found out if my performance had merited a festive tip from any of the houses on my route. Though I had no comrades as such, there was a sense, I felt, that we were all in the same boat. No one would do that job unless they needed to; so even that posh boy who showed me kindness on the first day couldn’t have been all that posh, really. So whenever I’ve caught the eye of a paperboy since, I’ve smiled—not a creepy smile, I hope; or a daft photographic smile. But a grim smile of recognition for a difficult job that’s been done, so I like to imagine, for noble—if maybe foolish—reasons.
Just as there’s Dignity in all manner of suffering that’s entered into willingly, I felt even then that The Paper Round was a dignified Job. No matter the tutting commuters, the bells of bicycles, or the many kids in The Cathedral City who had no need of a Job; nor the looks of teachers who thought me a mess, stumbling in to school in the preposterous blazer, shirt, and tie they made me wear. And no matter that the love I thought I was in was only a coping mechanism for The Rupture that (I felt) had scuppered my life before I'd even set sail: there was dignity in waking early and working hard for poor pay—not just to put newspapers on the breakfast tables of the well-to-do folk of The Cathedral City; but to put me on a train to North Wales and my past, so I could begin to see it for what it was and not for what I imagined it to have been—so I could afford, emotionally and financially, to prepare to let go.
Finally, the Productivity of the Job spoke for itself: hundreds of newspapers—maybe thousands over the months—swept up from the miniature depot of The Newsagent’s, where they arrived at God-knows-what time from God-knows where, to be lugged about town at the dawning of days, and slotted through letterboxes of people who’d paid. Communication: information, headlines, straplines, standfirsts, bulletins, columns, photographs, facts, opinions, events, news, propaganda, persuasions, diversions, adverts, lies, libel, lewdness and licentiousness. Better than TV, surely: the only real way to get the news back then. My ink-smudged fingers by second breakfast like faint echoes of coal-mining ancestors’ pasts—and the stretch-marks on my lower back: my enduring Memento of The Paper Round.
Yes, The Paper Round was hard. But it was still, undeniably, A Good Job.
Concluding notes
I saved up enough over the course of those months to get a train to North Wales that summer. But Tigwillow informed me by letter just weeks before the end of term that she wouldn’t in fact be there when I came, because she was going to Denmark on a cycling holiday. This was crushing, Prospective Employer—but I felt she’d been trying for months to Manage my Expectations: sending progressively shorter replies to my letters; leaving longer gaps before replying; telling me she'd never really liked Britpop anyway and that her favourite band was in fact The Lighthouse Family...
Notwithstanding these revelations, I went “home” for a couple of days that summer anyway, because I’d already booked the tickets. I probably stayed with my North Wales aunt and uncle, who my older brother was probably still living with. Certainly, I saw some of my “real friends”—who I by now only half-knew, and who by now only half-knew me—and we visited the five square miles of deindustrialized rural wilderness that used to be my de facto back garden, and we camped in my second-favourite quarry, where I cut my lip drinking red wine from a bottle we’d had to smash against a rock to open. A new family had moved into The Villa. I listened briefly to their children squabbling in our old garden from my crouched position behind the stone wall that separated it from the sheep field I was lurking in. You don’t know how lucky you are, I thought.
After nine months, we moved from The Stopgap Flat to The Suburban Culdesac outside The Railway Town. It was... suboptimal; but I had my own bedroom again. And we got our border collie back, and I’d walk her in the square mile of semi-commercial woodland. But I suspected she, like I, might never shake the memory of those five square miles of deindustrialized rural wilderness where we'd lived, for those few years, without restraint. But The Rupture could not be reversed. It was an open wound; and only the grind of time, which felt like salt, could hope to heal it.
Aged 15, in late 1998, I got another paper round in the second nearest newsagent’s to The Suburban Culdesac. But due to the time constraints imposed on my routine by the necessity of getting to and from The Posh School in The Cathedral City, I could only work Sundays. Spread across miles of suburban streets on a sheer hillside, this poor sequel to my Paper Round Job was a hellish route, and took all morning; but it did pay three pounds! I did it for a couple of months, until the routes were sold to another newsagent who promptly cut my weekly wage by 33% to two pounds. So I quit. That second paper round was A Bad Job, because Sundays should be restful; and I no longer had as much motivation to earn money anyway—I’d little hope of seeing Tigwillow again. Besides, I’d really only taken on that second paper round at my mother’s suggestion. And maybe partly out of habit. [Next chapter]
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