Have your cake and eat it...
After sacking the morning paper round cause I couldn't get out of bed and got the numbering system wrong when I did, I got a job selling fruit & veg on a door to door night-time delivery round. For a 14yr old it was the business. The smallholder/owner was a bit of a loser. He was about 40, bald with bushy sideburns and still lived with his mum, I guessed he was still a virgin by the pervy way he used to ogle the housewives on the doorstep. I started off as his runner, fetching and carrying from the trailer. Then, after a while, he gave me a big bag of change and set me off on the knock, hoping to increase his sales. I soon got the hang of it, as most took sympathy on me, even if it was just a bag of carrots for 14p. It was an eye-opener too, as many a nightie clad lady would bend over for a rummage in my basket, for a closer look at my wares (it worked both ways). Some seemed to revel at my fortnightly appearances, or was it me being naive? It didn’t take long for me to realise that it is impossible to stock-take perishables and that the float I had was a bit random too. I was soon topping-up my meagre £5 a night on the sly, better still was him letting me drive the car as we progressed street by street in the night. This activity was soon curtailed after I nearly overturned the 4-wheel trailer on a bend at speed, “oh so that’s what the middle peddle is for?” as he yanked on the hand-break in desperation (phew that was close). With business booming he even took on a younger lad as my junior. So for 5 nights every 2 weeks I was raking in £50 easy and pushing up my own commission dependant on the sales! What struck me was how easy it was to just think of a number when tallying-up a customer’s purchases, as nothing was labelled you could invent your own prices accordingly. Fiddling around with cash on the doorstep can be a draughty affair, but for the convenience most never questioned the total. Most nights ended with a veritable feast to take home from the chippy. Back then I could afford fish and a steak pudding with curry sauce and still have my wages and cash to spare, happy days…

Circa 1980.
(minky, Thu 10 May 2007, 17:22, Reply)