Joe...Thank you for another very interesting picture. As you know, I only recently discovered this Bootle Forum,
and I am enjoying trawling through many threads. With regard to this picture, the Bedford 10 cwt van parked
in the centre is delivering "Evening Express" newspapers to the newsagent and ciggy shop kiosk. Unusually,
their vans didn't have back doors, they had a low tailboard and a roller shutter, which for most of the time was
left open, because the vanlad in the back jumped out with the bundle of papers at each "Paper Shop".
The Evening Express eventually became part of the "Liverpool Daily Post & Echo". After I left the employment
of Jarvis Robinson Transport, I got a job driving the "Echo Vans", which were owned by the transport division
of W.H.Smith (Newsagents). My work entailed starting at 11pm on Sunday night at their depot at Leeds Street,
driving a BMC FG 7 ton box van to the Daily Post at Victoria Street, and loading up with about 40 deliveries of
the Welsh edition of the Daily Post, as soon as it was loaded, it was off into the Mersey Tunnel and head to my
first drop at Queensferry. There I did my first drop to a paper shop and met up with 2 artic lorry drivers from
BRS Parcels, 1 from Liverpool, and 1 from Manchester, also a lorry driver from "Grimsby Fish", where fresh cod
in a bag of ice cubes would be swapped for a few copies of the Daily Post. I delivered all the way along the coast
road as far as Bangor Railway Station and W.H.Smith newspaper sorting office. After a cup of tea and a butty,
I loaded up again with about 15 deliveries of the National newspapers which had arrived by train at Bangor, and
made into individual shop bundles, which I then set off to deliver as far as the Crosville bus depot at Llandudno Junction.
The 10 or so bundles which I dropped at Crosville were put onto several buses that were destined for Llanrwst, Corwen,
Blaenau Ffestiniog, and other places that I cant pronounce or spell. The Crosville bus crews & staff were
given free papers, and for that, I was allowed to drive my van through the Bus Wash as required. Arrival time back in
Liverpool was usually about 10am. This work was 6 nights a week, finishing about 10am on Saturday morning.
My wages at Jarvis Robinson was about 17 Quid a week including a bit of overtime, my wages at W.H.Smith was
near to 30 quid, I got to know several of the Police on the coast road, and was very often pulled in at Penmaen Head
just before Old Colwyn, The reason for the stop was so that they could scrounge free newspapers for themselves and
the Sergeant at Colwyn Bay. The Police cars that they had were 3 litre Austin Westminster saloons, one young copper
who was as daft as a brush, once asked me if I wanted a "Blue Light Chase" all the way down as far as Colwyn Bay,
so off I went, up to about 50MPH, with PC Plod right behind me, as it was 2am in the morning, nobody saw us.
Fond memories, Happy days, Ray Smyth.