H Woodley & Son East Street

Mr Woodley gave me my first job in September 1980 when I was just 13 years old. It was as a Sunday paper delivery boy. I used to deliver to the whole of the right hand side of Station Road up as far as Tors Road, all of Leeze Park, all of Tors Road & all of Parklands. Start times was always around 6am but sometimes I would get picked up earlier by Mr Woodley to go up to the railway station to collect the papers to take to the shop to be sorted into their respective rounds. Used to have to collect the money for the papers each week & record the payments in a little book which then had to be taken back to the Mrs Woodley in Kempley Road to be counted & tallied with the book before I got my wages. I got paid 85p for this – but at the time I was only getting 40p a week pocket money so I thought I was rich! Station Road & Tors Road in particular were quite affluent areas at the time with doctors, dentists, local property owners etc living up there so the Christmas tips were often quite substantial – I seem to remember collecting around £50 on my first Christmas which to me at the time was a small fortune! I did this round for nearly 3 years – sometimes in the snow, often in pouring rain. Over this period the paper bags got heavier as each Sunday paper started to come with a supplement. Happy memories looking back – although it could be disputed whether I actually felt happy at the time! It certainly tought me the importance of work ethics though & Mr & Mrs Woodley were a very decent & fair couple to work for.