Delivering the news
At dawn we rise in hand come alive,
A big yellow bag to command and to drive,
The sun calls me up to Wentworth Road,
Sometimes she's walked and sometimes she's rode,
From times to telegraph to people and mail,
Filled with supplements and gadgets for sale,
First it's the teacher so best be behaved,
Then the Dulux dog and a pat and a wave,
Onto the man who gets the big three,
I still wonder what we'd done unto he,
Their memory lives on these three little streets,
Delivering the words on Shelley, Tennyson and Keats.
Explanation
Like many kids in their mid teens, I had a paper round. I just did mine on a Sunday, so this is about my memories of that.
At dawn we rise in hand come alive,
A big yellow bag to command and to drive,
This refers to waking up early (very early for a teenager), after the alarm beeps. Get up dressed, and out the door with the yellow delivery bag that would be my friend for this morning.
The sun calls me up to Wentworth Road,
Sometimes she's walked and sometimes she's rode,
To get from my house to the newsagents where I had to pick up my papers, I had to walk up Wentworth road, which during the summer, on a clear morning would have the sun beaming down it, as if it was guiding me towards my destination. Sometimes I went on foot, sometimes I used my bike.
From times to telegraph to people and mail,
Filled with supplements and gadgets for sale,
This is about the big Sunday papers that people would get, often filled with extra Sunday supplement with catalogues offering weird and wonderful gadgets for the home.
First it's the teacher so best be behaved,
Then the Dulux dog and a pat and a wave,
On my round, I had to deliver to a house where a teacher from my school lived (Mrs Selwood should she ever come across this....oh and thanks for the Christmas tip!). Then I had to go onto a house, where they had a huge dog, just like the one in the Dulux paint adverts. I was terrified of the thing the first few times I did it, but I soon realised it was just a big lovable thing who wanted a bit of a tickle.
Onto the man who gets the big three,
I still wonder what we'd done unto he,
I remember there was one man who got the three big Sunday papers. They were the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and Observer. Huge things they were. Why he needed to get all three, I've no idea. I often wonder whether he'd hated paper boys or something and this was he way of causing us pain - to make us carry all this paper.
Their memory lives on these three little streets,
Delivering the words on Shelley, Tennyson and Keats.
Three of the streets that I delivered to were named after three great posts, Shelley, Tennyson and Keats. It's quite nice, and warming that I'm writing a poem about my paper round, which just so happened to include deliveries to these streets.
