See The Generosity

Regardless of us intending to continue with the lawn mowing as a fund raising enterprise or not, our mother had still arranged for us to mow the lawns of some of the older locals for free. And we had to do that. For a few weeks at least.  Generally they thanked us with an offer of a cup of tea, or if very generous, an ice block. No money. The advantage for us was that in the cooler climates of the South Island of New Zealand, the grass did not grow that quickly. So, the grass didn’t need to be mowed that often. And since we were mowing for free. It didn’t affect us too much. As we got a little older the opportunity to work at the store across the road after school, also presented itself and was accepted. That involved cleaning the floors, sorting vegetables and fruit, stockpiling the shelves and occasionally packing orders. Sometimes delivering them. ‘Open All hours’ that classic British comedy with Ronnie Barker and David Jason has always struck a chord with me sentimentally. Unfortunately again the hours I was expected to work tended to be stretched out by the employer, while he only payed for the agreed time. That job was soon left as well. As you can see there was no major financial empire building going on by the children of the household. And with eight children and parents, any money you had was quickly used if getting a birthday present, or card for a sibling when the birthdays rolled around so regularly. 

Around that same time I took on a paper round in winter, in Dunedin. In a place, where even snow, was not uncommon in the main street. I struggled a bit with that. Early morning starts, 5:30am, in chilly and cold Dunedin. Even in summer it was still dark at that time of the morning, winter it was twice as dark, and cold. Being woken early from my warm bed. To dress against any one of the freezing conditions which could, and did occur outside. Collect the newspapers from the bus stop at the roundabout terminus and roll them. Eventually they realised that the rolling of the papers took more time than delivering, and a machine was introduced to roll and wrap the newspapers. Then start the delivery.

There was an average of a dozen houses in each street who subscribed to the newspaper. I had 6 streets to do on one round and 10 or so on the second round. In those days, there was no ‘american style’ throwing the paper near to the front door. Every paper was delivered into the subscribers mailbox (or else).  Unfortunately where we lived, only about 100 houses on the entire paper route were on a flattish section of ground. And only about 15 of them took the subscription. Oh, and it was also up to me to promote the newspaper and get subscriptions. Usually a job on Saturday mid mornings, if you could catch the people at home.

(Continued tomorrow).