Sunday 10th December 2006: After 18 years of working under Bill, we're now on our own. Sunday is Denise's
day off so it was down to myself and Wayne although things started badly last night when someone
decided to smash one of our windows. Subsequently we spent half the morning patching it up and making it safe. I cut my finger and was in
danger of bleeding to death (ok, slight overstatement!) before clotting finally took hold and Wayne got a sliver stuck in his hand. Credit to him though, he did do almost all of the hammering to board up the window,
although the early morning cold air did turn blue more than once!
Papers were nice and early although one of our girls had the flu whilst another was at the seaside (In December??) so I did have extras rounds to do.
Disc Watch: Just two today with the Mail and Express both delighting us with freebies. The Express had a Carry On film and the Mail (Duran
Duran special super-duper something or other) did their usual `jam the CD in the middle of the mag so it won't fold` routine. I wonder if we'll ever see another Saturday or Sunday with no free CDs of DVDs at all? I doubt it somehow.
Monday 11th December 2006: My first day off since the whirlwind that has been the last few days and all went well
according to Denise. We would
both like to thank everyone for the good luck wishes, not to mention the flowers(!), that we've been getting. It makes it all the
more worthwhile among all the excitement, fears and reservations that we have. Good to hear positives also that we've included
the name of the town in the new name as well. We felt that it was important to include the Frome name in a Frome business.
Tuesday 12th December 2006: First off today, major thanks to Brian for fixing our broken window. As someone who cant build a
house of cards, I always appreciate anyone who can even do the most basic DIY that is almost always beyond me
- and this window was not basic! Everything else was
fine, although my inability to count to double figures meant a trip out to a news deliverers house as I only sent him 9 Telegraph
instead of 11. Like myself, both the boy and his father are Leeds United supporters and maybe that where my numerical problem comes
from. I mean it takes my club so long to get to double figures as regards points that the fans give up counting! At this rate, we
could be playing the MK Dons next season.
Wednesday 13th December 2006: Not the best start as our Racing Post, Daily Record and
Western Mail all went missing. Cue a mad search at 4:30am, including our van driver wading right through piles of still-to-be-delivered bundles
on his van to try and find what we thought was a missing bundle. No luck so a quick phone call
to Bristol no doubt sparked a mad panic there...until we found them at the bottom of our 203
Western Daily Press! Cue more mad rushing around to ring Bristol back and apologise to them
and our driver! Still, we can't be perfect all the time!
Thursday 14th December 2006: Yesterday we had some delivery problems
around the town centre so we are sorry if you were affected by this, we
have taken steps to ensure that such delays shouldn't happen again. Today,
whilst the Somerset Standard arrived on time, all the other locals were
late so if you were eagerly awaiting your delivery of the Western Gazette,
Somerset Guardian or Shepton Mallet Journal, you'll get them tomorrow as
they were held up in Bristol today.
Friday 15th December 2006: Our town centre deliverer wasn't well today so I had that round to do. According to the
expert weathermen, this year has been the warmest on record and whilst this may not be good news long term for the planet, it's
nice in the short term for us and our deliverers. Usually by now we've had a few frosts and cold mornings but nothing to write home
about so far. Friday usually sees the first of the weekend mags and inserts arrive and today we were treated to Tele, Mail and Express
mags as well as one of the Tele news inserts (weekend section). This makes things much easier for us newsies and meant that I could
save some time on Saturday morning by doing some of the insertions today. Keep it up publishers, the earlier the better.
Saturday 16th December 2006: The day started strangely today with the man who lives above our office sat on his stairs
when I got in at 3:30am. He'd locked himself out and was stuck between ringing the landlord (not advised at stupid o'clock) or
wrenching the door open with a makeshift crowbar (equally not advised in truth). Thankfully we came to a happy resolution
courtesy of the spare key that we have safe in the office! The Racing Post was late in today, arriving at 7:30am. This meant
minimal
disruption thankfully although apologies if you did have your Post later than usual. Thanks also to Rog for taking the late ones
out for me. Oh, and it did happen today!! Are publishers reading this or was it a pre-Xmas treat for us? Yes, there were no free
CDs or DVDs in any paper today! No trying to fold the Mail with heir's glued slap-bang in the middle! No wrestling with a DVD
of a 1935 Black and White classic which is half an inch too big to fit through most letterboxes. And no wondering if the police will
come calling in case we inadvertently sell a 15-rated freebie to a 14-year old who has come around the corner to buy his grans
paper!
Sunday 17th December 2006: Papers in lovely and early (3:45am, not long after I got there) and although we were a bit
tight on Mail's, it was a nice, smooth morning with everything seemingly clicking into place. One of our papergirls is away
in Paris on a school trip which meant a couple of rounds to cover. When we were at school
back in 1794, the highlight of the year was a school
trip to Bristol Zoo or Rode Bird Gardens! A day of coach travel, specially prepared worksheets to do which blew any hope of doing what
we wanted for the duration and a feast of a packed lunch with soggy egg or spam sandwiches,
stale ready salted crisps and lukewarm non-fizzy drinks. Fizzy
drinks were always banned due to the fear of us kids shaking and opening them on unsuspecting members of the public I reckon.
Oh and as for the spam, this was in the days when spam was `luncheon meat` and not junk email advertising stocks and shares tips,
cheap Viagra and even cheaper enlargements to certain parts of the anatomy.
No CDs or DVDs in the papers again today, although the Indy did have a small book of some description.
Tuesday 19th December 2006: This year is supposed the warmest on record, however this morning winter arrived! I'm not
talking `scraping ice of windscreen at 3:30am` sort of cold (although that will come no doubt) however it was
noticeably
chillier today, a fact not missed by one of our older paperboys who wasn't keen on leaving the warm marking up room
to go back outside. One of our better van drivers of recent times (the ones that brings the papers from Bristol to us) left today and he'll be
missed by us. Whilst not strictly part of his duties, he would always ring in advance if he was running late or if any papers
were on re-run, giving us valuable time to get prepared for the two worst eventualities - late papers and not received papers.
Hopefully when they find a new driver, he'll be equally as helpful.
Wednesday 20th December 2006: If we thought yesterday was cold, today has outdone it big time! It's a brass-monkey-looking-for-a-welder
type of morning and the day when you really appreciate how hard our deliverers work for their money. The fog doesn't help either although
all of our papers were in by 4:30am so full credit to the army of workers that do their bit
whilst most of us are asleep. If there's one thing that customers like, it's a free gift with their paper/mag and if there's one thing that we don't like,
it's when the aforementioned freebies are missing! Imagine my horror when today's Garden News
plugged "Free 3 Jumbo Fuchsias" on their masthead yet no sign of them! Thankfully in tiny, microscopic letters next to it was "Just Pay P&P".
That's the freebies we like, when everyone has to send off for them and we don't need to try and cram
half a rose garden through letterboxes.
Thursday 21st December 2006: Another cold one today with myself and
Denise taking it in turns in the office to sit in front of the heater.
It's also the first day of the school hols which meant most of our
deliverers coming in a little later than usual although only one was past
our cut off time but he told us that it was due to icy roads in his area!
Five hours previous when I went out to the car to see it frozen solid, I
had a mini-crisis when the nozzle on my de-icer came off in the back of
the car. Thanks to my daughter, the car resembles a cross between a teenagers bedroom and a fast food
restaurant and finding something as small
as an aerosol nozzle in the pitch black was close to impossible! Mind you, one of our adult deliverers had it worse when she
couldn't get the back door to her car to stay closed!
Friday 22nd December 2006: Not as cold today but the fog was back with a vengance! The papers
were in exceptionally early and almost beat me here! At the risk of tempting fate, the arrival
times have been
superb of late which makes things so much easier for us. Christmas usually sees a mass influx of
partworks as the publishers bombard us with the first of 165 parts and then cannot keep up with demand on the more popular ones.
Today saw the arrival of (drum roll please!) The Art Of Knitting, complete with free DVD and two balls of wool.
I won't knock it as there is obviously a market for it, however at £2.99 an issue once it gets started, even the most die-hard knitters
will probably give it a wide berth. To the rest of us, this and most of the others that will arrive
soon will be as much use as a freezer to an eskimo.
Saturday 23rd December 2006: Between now and the New Year, we have a lot of deliverers away and many of those left are
doing extra rounds so please bear with us if your paper is a little later than usual. We are doing our best and don't want to be
out in the cold any longer than need be! In our favour, the papers were very early again which begs the question that if the
publishers can get them out early this time of the year, why can't they do it all the time? We aren't blaming the wholesalers or
drivers as they are governed by time as well as we are!
Sunday 24th December 2006: Some of today's papers do NOT have the usual colour supplements in them as they were double
last Sunday. I know in advance that the News of the World and Sunday Times are both magazine-less
and the Mirror and People are also without mags. It's not helped by the publishers printing
Free TV Guide all across the front when in effect it's actually just part of the paper. Never
mind, these things are sent to try us! There are no papers tomorrow so all that remains is
to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas from all at Frome News Deliveries. See you on
Boxing Day.
Boxing Day - Tuesday 26th December 2006: Whilst most sensible people were either asleep or not yet in bed after the
Christmas excess, a small proverbial army of us were at the office to get the Boxing Day deliveries ready. A few years back there
were never any papers on Boxing Day, however now we have a mish-mash with most publishing but the Guardian, Financial Times and
Western Daily Press NOT being printed. This may have helped with the papers arriving before I did so I have no idea what time
they got to us only that it was before 3:30am. We closed up at 9am so sorry if you tried to get hold of us after that (the
opening times have been on this site for a week though) but I'm sure you appreciate that even us phantoms of the early mornings
need to spend some time with family at this time of the year.
Thursday 28th December 2006: Somerset Standards are in and available today although they are wafer thin as usual at this time of the year, meaning that our usual 16 bundles were down to just six today. They were here when I arrived this morning, however the logo on the back said Guardian Sport which had me worrying that we'd been delivered over 600 Radstock Guardian
instead of Frome Standards. Thankfully this wasn't the case once I'd seen the front masthead. I have to admit that the first eight moths of this year was horrendous as regards the arrival of the Standard and it was becoming the norm for them to be deserately late more than they were on time and on one occasion it was a whole day late! This gave us severe headaches with customers (naturally enough) on the phone wanting their weekly local. However, since September they have really got their act together and they haven't been late once in the last four months so credit where credit is due.
Friday 29th December 2006: Don't you just love the British weather? When I and the other early brigade arrived at stupid
o'clock, it was nippy but dry. By 5:30am it had started to get warmer and wetter and by the time most of our paperboys/girls
came in, it was raining the proverbial Siamese and Dalmations. It's days like this where they really earn their money as there are
many of their age who wouldn't even consider getting up at an unearthly hour to go out in all winds and weathers.
Saturday 30th December 2006: There were no colour TV mags for the Sun and Times this weekend as
they were both double issues last Saturday. This caused confusion among many especially as the bingo card last week alos had two weeks games on rather than two games for one week as one of our adult deliverers thought! We had a massive amount of rounds to cover this morning with 18 the final total so our apologies if your paper was a litle later than usual. After Monday, we're pretty much back to normality as regards holidays for deliverers!
Sunday 31st December 2006: We had a nice message left on our answerphone today from a lady equesting that we stop sending the third party leaflets that are often inside her Sunday paper. I imagine she speaks for many of the population, however from our viewpoint the papers arrive with them inside and it would take us far to long to go through each paper, checking for inserts and then taking them out. However, out of interest, our two biggest sellers on a Sunday are the Mail and News of the World, both of which supply their magazines in polybags, so I decided to split one of each open and see what was inside. The N/O/W had the colour supp and TV mag, however they also had TWO Argos catalogues (an `end of catalogue sale` and a health and fitness one), a DFS catalogue and a readers survey form. Oh and an offer booklet inserted inside the paper itself. The Mail was worse! They had (pause for breath) a Tesco Direct catalogue, one for IJT Direct (who??), one for Hammonds, a P&O Cruises leaflet and something fior Scotts of Stow! I'm still looking for the partridge in a pear tree. Now, bear in mind that as these are all bagged with the regular mags, we news deliverers have little choice but to deliver these directly to the doors with no payment from either publisher or
advertiser. Equally it's worth remembering the extra weight generated by thses especially when most rounds have close to double figures regarding just Mail and N/O/W.
Okay, end of moan. Just to wish everyone a Happy and healthy New Year. There are papers on New Years Day so if you are coming home from a party around 4am, we'll just be starting work!!
