given a two-pound float to take with us in case any customers needed change. Upon our return, we then had to add up our receipts, count out our money, subtract our float from the total and hence, hopefully, balance our books. This was my first encounter with simple but highly effective early business practice. This is how business worked. What could be more straightforward?
The pay for collecting was 10 per cent of whatever you collected, which often turned out to be more than you would get for a whole week of delivering. This was easy street in comparison to the delivery rounds, but you had to deliver to get to collect and the better you delivered the better collecting round you were rewarded with. Ralph was a disaster at social intercourse but he sure knew how to get the best out of his boys. He was like a cross between Scrooge and Fagin.
So, what with my morning round, the hallowed position of spare boy, the collecting round, plus additional evening and the Saturday Pink Final rounds (the Pink Finals were sport result sheets, prepared to arrive half an hour after the final scores had come in), I was bringing home easily over a tenner, more towards fifteen quid a week!
Doing the maths, I figured this meant in six weeks I would have close to a hundred pounds. A hundred pounds to my mind was a small fortune—it was enough to buy a brand new bike and still have fifty quid left. It took my mum a whole year to buy my last bike. On this kind of money I could even afford a secondhand motorcycle, or even, at a stretch…an old car! Not that I had any use for one as I was still three years away from being eligible to drive.
This was simply amazing to me, the concrete of the council estate where I lived was still all around but its greyness was beginning to fade. As I had suspected, working worked.
Some of the houses where I collected from on a Friday were also the ‘nice’ houses. I could see into their living rooms as I stood by the door waiting for someone to come and pay. These houses had a different smell, they had a different energy, there was more going on. The women who answered the doors seemed to smile more, they were prettier, kinder, theyeven looked younger. What was it with these people? They had something else going on.
Then one day I realised. They were happier.
I made another mental note, bigger, nicer house, equals happier—usually unless you were Ralph or one of the other grumblies.
Top 10 Bosses I’ve Worked For
10 Richard Branson (Virgin Radio)
9 Michael Grade (Channel 4)
8 Andrea Wonfor (Channel 4)
7 Don Atyeo (The Power Station)
6 Timmy Mallett (Piccadilly Radio)
5 Charlie Parsons ( The Big Breakfast )
4 Waheed Alli ( The Big Breakfast )
3 Matthew Bannister (Greater London Radio)
2 Lesley Douglas (Radio 2)
1 Mike Hibbett (Ralph’s Newsagents)
My newsagency career continued to blossom and with it my bank account. It wasn’t long before I saw my next promotion. Forget the army, there are more ranks to the hierarchical structure of a newsagents than most international organisations.
My next stripe on the arm was a biggy: I was to be elevated to the much-envied post of ‘marker-up’.
The marker-up was the boy who arrived at the same time as Mike the manager. Mike was dead cool, he was forty, which I thought was pretty old at the time but not that old—not in his case at least. To my mind there are young forty year olds and there are old forty year olds, and Mike was definitely one of the former. He loved to play squash, had been a pretty handy footballer in his day and still kept himself fit by going for a run three or four times a week. He was also one of life’s good guys.
Mike is still in the top three bosses I’ve ever had. He was the type of guy that you just did things for, he was always really kind to me. I remember he had a son who I thought was so lucky to have a dad like him.
Mike worked hard and always had a smile on his face, especially
The pay for collecting was 10 per cent of whatever you collected, which often turned out to be more than you would get for a whole week of delivering. This was easy street in comparison to the delivery rounds, but you had to deliver to get to collect and the better you delivered the better collecting round you were rewarded with. Ralph was a disaster at social intercourse but he sure knew how to get the best out of his boys. He was like a cross between Scrooge and Fagin.
So, what with my morning round, the hallowed position of spare boy, the collecting round, plus additional evening and the Saturday Pink Final rounds (the Pink Finals were sport result sheets, prepared to arrive half an hour after the final scores had come in), I was bringing home easily over a tenner, more towards fifteen quid a week!
Doing the maths, I figured this meant in six weeks I would have close to a hundred pounds. A hundred pounds to my mind was a small fortune—it was enough to buy a brand new bike and still have fifty quid left. It took my mum a whole year to buy my last bike. On this kind of money I could even afford a secondhand motorcycle, or even, at a stretch…an old car! Not that I had any use for one as I was still three years away from being eligible to drive.
This was simply amazing to me, the concrete of the council estate where I lived was still all around but its greyness was beginning to fade. As I had suspected, working worked.
Some of the houses where I collected from on a Friday were also the ‘nice’ houses. I could see into their living rooms as I stood by the door waiting for someone to come and pay. These houses had a different smell, they had a different energy, there was more going on. The women who answered the doors seemed to smile more, they were prettier, kinder, theyeven looked younger. What was it with these people? They had something else going on.
Then one day I realised. They were happier.
I made another mental note, bigger, nicer house, equals happier—usually unless you were Ralph or one of the other grumblies.
Top 10 Bosses I’ve Worked For
10 Richard Branson (Virgin Radio)
9 Michael Grade (Channel 4)
8 Andrea Wonfor (Channel 4)
7 Don Atyeo (The Power Station)
6 Timmy Mallett (Piccadilly Radio)
5 Charlie Parsons ( The Big Breakfast )
4 Waheed Alli ( The Big Breakfast )
3 Matthew Bannister (Greater London Radio)
2 Lesley Douglas (Radio 2)
1 Mike Hibbett (Ralph’s Newsagents)
My newsagency career continued to blossom and with it my bank account. It wasn’t long before I saw my next promotion. Forget the army, there are more ranks to the hierarchical structure of a newsagents than most international organisations.
My next stripe on the arm was a biggy: I was to be elevated to the much-envied post of ‘marker-up’.
The marker-up was the boy who arrived at the same time as Mike the manager. Mike was dead cool, he was forty, which I thought was pretty old at the time but not that old—not in his case at least. To my mind there are young forty year olds and there are old forty year olds, and Mike was definitely one of the former. He loved to play squash, had been a pretty handy footballer in his day and still kept himself fit by going for a run three or four times a week. He was also one of life’s good guys.
Mike is still in the top three bosses I’ve ever had. He was the type of guy that you just did things for, he was always really kind to me. I remember he had a son who I thought was so lucky to have a dad like him.
Mike worked hard and always had a smile on his face, especially
Similar Books
