Tony Macaulay - Paperboy - An Enchanting True Story of a Belfast Paperboy Coming to Terms with the Troubles

As I bounced away from No. 102, I heard the door unbolt behind me, and then the voice of Mrs Charlton with the Scottish accent calling: ‘Och, that’s great, love. Don’t forget my Sunday Post – and will you bring my bin round the back on a Wednesday, and I’ll give you 10p for a wee 99 from the poke man?’

Mrs Charlton had ‘good tipper’ written all over her.

I knew already that I was going to be great at this. My hands were so black now that I had smudged the writing on the dirty wee paper bag Oul’ Mac had given me. I would need this vital source of information with me for the rest of the week, by which time I would have committed all my odd and even numbers to memory. It was like learning algebra, but with a purpose.

When I got back to our house after my first paper round, my mother was in the living room on the sewing machine, making another dress for a swanky lady on the Malone Road. Mammy was always sewing for someone, and she had the very latest sewing machine from the Great Universal Club Book. It was so expensive she was allowed to pay it off over sixty weeks instead of the usual twenty.

‘Well, how did it go, love?’ she enquired.

‘Aye, no probs!’ I replied, clearly delighted with my first day of paid employment.

‘Was any of them oul’ dolls cheeky to you?’ she asked.

‘No, Mammy, they were all dead on. Mrs Grant and yer Scotchy woman are going to give me a good tip, so they are, but Mr Black thinks I’m too young to be a paperboy,’ I confided.

‘Never mind that oul’ get,’ Mammy said. ‘Sure, he’s too old himself to be anything!’

‘Where’s Daddy?’ I asked.

‘He’s doin’ overtime to pay for the new suite in the sitting room,’ she explained. ‘He thinks it’s great you’ve got yourself a wee job now. He says no son of his will ever be working late in a foundry three nights a week.’

Every evening Oul’ Mac would cut the white string that held the Sixth Edition Belfast Telegraphs tightly in a bulging batch, releasing forty-eight copies into my care. I would then fill my paperbag and sling it over my shoulder. At the start of the round, my shoulder ached, especially on Thursdays and Fridays, when the papers had extra pages, and the weekly colour magazines arrived. A bagful of Belly Tellys later, the lessening of the burden over my shoulder would be matched by a lightness of spirit and the realisation that my work for the day was almost done.

On my second Thursday in the job I was happily delivering my Tellys as usual, when Titch McCracken came running round the corner clutching a box of Curly Wurlys and I was faced with the first ethical conundrum of my career. I knew by the guilty look on Titch’s face that he had been shoplifting in the Mace again.

‘Where’d ya get all them there Curly Wurlys?’ I enquired.

‘Found them, so I did!’ replied Titch unconvincingly.

Without even stopping, he threw a Curly Wurly into my paper bag and disappeared down an entry like a drug dealer in Starsky and Hutch. For the remainder of my paper round I pondered the morality of accepting stolen goods and delayed tucking into my criminal Curly Wurly. However, just as I was approaching the door of my final customer of the night, I noticed that a disaster had unfolded inside my paperbag. As I reached inside to grab Mrs Dunne’s Belfast Telegraph, I discovered that the front page was plastered with melted chocolate from my illegal Curly Wurly. The inside of my paperbag looked like a dirty protest in Long Kesh. There was melted chocolate smeared all over a picture of Harold Wilson with the pipe. I stopped still in the street. I had to think very quickly. So, I came up with a cunning plan, like John Steed with the umbrella in The Avengers.

I ran home to check if our newspaper had been delivered. Sure enough, the Belly Telly was still on the floor in the hall, nestled underneath my wee brother’s bright orange space hopper. It had been perfectly delivered through the letterbox by Billy Cooper, one of my fellow professionals. Billy was cross-eyed but never missed a letterbox. As I removed the front and back pages, to replace the Curly-Wurly-flavoured pages on Mrs Dunne’s newspaper, I noticed our back page was badly crumpled. My wee brother had been bouncing up and down the hall on his space hopper when the paper had arrived and he had crushed the sports page.

I rushed to the under-stairs cupboard and took out my mother’s iron and ironing board as quietly as possible, while the rest of my family were transfixed by The Generation Game on BBC 1 in the living room. I swiftly ironed the back page until it was completely smooth, the same way I had watched Mr Hudson do it in Upstairs Downstairs. Then I carefully removed the chocolate-stained pages from Mrs Dunne’s newspaper and replaced them with the newly ironed pages. I put the chocolaty pages around our newspaper and strategically smeared some melted Curly Wurly on the space hopper, for the purposes of sibling incrimination.

I rushed out the door, back towards Mrs Dunne’s house, hoping she wouldn’t notice the slightly scorched footballers on the back page.

Mrs Dunne worked in the chemist, wore lots of make up and lived on her own. Mr Dunne, who wore a cravat, had moved across the water the previous year. Mrs Dunne didn’t tell anyone at first. It was only when the neighbours noticed that the noise of Shirley Bassey records blaring from the Dunne’s sitting room had stopped that they realised Mr Dunne had left. Mrs Dunne was lovely looking. She had blonde hair in a bob, like Jill in Crossroads on UTV. She was very friendly to the various service providers who called to the Shankill. She was always asking them in for a wee cuppa and a scone. One day there had been a big queue at the ice cream van after she invited the poke man in with a 99. When he eventually emerged from Mrs Dunne’s to look after his customers, our ice cream man looked very pleased with himself. He obviously appreciated Mrs Dunne’s cherry scones just as much as she enjoyed his pokes.

That night as I arrived at Mrs Dunne’s front door with the regenerated newspaper, the insurance man was just leaving, fixing his tie and his hair. I shyly handed Mrs Dunne her bespoke Belfast Telegraph. She smiled at me and said, ‘Och, you’re a quare good wee paperboy, so you are.’

I realised, with immense relief, that I had successfully averted a potentially career-threatening disaster.

By the end of my third week of paper delivery I was desperate for some feedback from Oul’ Mac. It seemed to me to be going very well and there had been no complaints, but I longed for Oul’ Mac to tell me I had as much dedication as Roy Castle on Record Breakers. I asked my big brother if Oul’ Mac ever told you how you were getting on in the job.

His reply was not at all helpful: ‘Only if he gives you a good kick up the arse!’

Finally, one wet night I plucked up the courage, and as Oul’ Mac was dispensing my papers from the van I asked him directly, man to man, ‘Am I doin’ alright with my papers and all, Mr Mac?’

Oul’ Mac paused, then removed his cigarette from his mouth for a split second and said, ‘Aye, alright.’

I knew at this moment that I had satisfactorily completed my probationary period, so I had.

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