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It's News To Me...

Returning from my attempt to enter military life, now jobless, with rent to pay, food to buy and the usual smattering of other bills, trawling the local rag job pages became the only pastime I could consider.

Unemployment figures in the UK have never had a positive trend, but I was convinced there would be something…

A vacancy for an Assistant Newspaper shop caught my eye, in a location not too far from where I lived using my bicycle (my mode of transport now downgraded since the scooter affair).

I had retail experience, given my M&S high-street shop employment, so, hell, why not?

Attending the interview, just days later, I met the Area Manager, a well besuited Ozzy guy with a shock of ginger hair. He talked through the requirements of the post, and the inevitable early hours needed to take the paper deliveries from the supplier and then make up the rounds for the delivery boys and girls.

The shop had a couple of part-time staff to manage but the mainstay hours would be mine…on paper, it would be about 60 hours a week (works out more as meeting the newspaper supplier prior to opening added at least an extra 1.5 hours a day)…

Hey ho, it was a job, an income and I started the following week.

The hours were long but I soon got into the role.

I enjoyed the interaction with the customers, many were regulars and I gradually learnt exactly what they would want during their visits.

The newspaper delivery kids, because that was what they were, mostly toed the line with the odd hiccup “slept in”, “late for school so can’t finish the round” etc., Shortfalls to the deliveries were supplemented by me once one of the part-timers clocked on.

As time went by, I got quite a rep for being competent at this shop management gig and I quickly realised that there would not be a Manager for my Assistant Manager position…it was a pay-grade scam lol! Acknowledging the latter, I contacted the Area Manager and asked about progression.

The Ozzy laughed quite a bit at my enquiry, but then obviously something triggered in his brain that would make his job easier.

“There is a vacancy for a Manager in the Hessle Road shop…the hours are similar and it would mean a few quid a week extra…” his voice tapering off, obviously expecting a response.

Hessle Road…a well-known area of Hull, known for its fishing community (this was back when Hull had a thriving fishing income). I knew the area and again, within about the same cycling distance. Plus added to my drive to earn more was the fact that I had a steady girlfriend.

So, I answered in the positive and soon became installed in the “community”.

Naturally, in many ways, the set-up was the same, part-timers covering slots in the day, a team of school kids on the daily deliveries and WHSmith (the newspaper delivery people) dropping off at about 4 am…yes!

However, the colour of the customers varied vastly to that of the previous shop.

But again I soon got to know a good deal of them and the things they wanted and when they would be visiting the shop.

The women from the “Shoe Factory”, quite an energetic crowd, would be in during their lunch break, swarming all over the shop, sneaking a read of as many magazines as they could for gossip fodder without having to buy them. Almost all of them smoked and I pretty much had the “Park Drive”, “Players No. 6” (cigarettes) and “Old Holborn” (tobacco), lined up on the counter for them.

Another regular of mine, “Sweat”, yup that what he was known as, I never found out his real name, a retired fisherman or dock worker had approached me when I first took on the place, asking about “Black Beauty” tobacco. Evidently, the previous management wouldn’t stock it and he couldn’t be bothered to wander into the city for it.

Of course, I managed to secure a regular supply of it for him…incidentally, this particular tobacco is a pipe baccy, but he hand-rolled it into ciggies…urgh.

Once “Sweat” knew I had his fave baccy sorted, he would periodically bring a bag full of recently caught fish of many types for me…he never wanted payment for the fish, his “mates on the dock” gave him it.

Now pretty well established and only in just a couple of months, “Sweat” asked me to meet him over at the “Rayners” Pub one lunchtime when my part-timer came to cover me. “Rayners” was a fisherman’s pub, a well-known haunt in the area.

Rayners in The 80s CLICK FOR MORE

So, hey, off I trotted and entered the pub. The place was humming with chatter and also the smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke.

As I approached the bar to order a pint, whilst I waited for “Sweat”, the pub went eerily quiet…you know, that moment in the film before the local thug pulls a knife on you.

I glanced around and my eyes met with those of “Sweat” who sidled alongside me smiling. He winked at me then turned to the other punters in the pub, “He’s OK, he’s one of us and with me”…the pub sprang back to life and I heaved a sigh of relief.

“They thought you were a copper” he chuckled.

I realised, of course, a guy, a stranger, with a number one cut hair, shirt, tie and neatly razor-seam ironed trousers, may well look slightly out of place here.

My baptism of fire over, the beer started to flow.

This was the age of tabletop “Space Invaders” and “Galaxian”. Playing “Galaxian” during my lunch break was something I became known for in “Rayners”, my high score reigned until some “mystery” punter beat it in the evening.

Whilst I was probably on Hessle Road for about 8 months, I became part of the community and the community spirit.

The Ozzy had identified me as an easy mark for dropping into various empty slots and soon called upon me to work a shop closure in Bradford…”Just for a week”…

Let’s see what lessons I had to learn in Bradford shall we?

Until Next Time!

Dominus Owen Markham

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