Minster Memories

A Memory of Minster.

I delivered papers for Attwell's newsagents in the 1970's, and being an entrepreneurial child, did two paper rounds! The first one was from the Square along Monkton road, down Egbert Road, then the cul-de-sac end of Augustine Road and then through the gas works alley to deliver to all of Rose Gardens. The second round was the rest of Monkton Road more or less to the village boundary. I seem to remember that the newsagents was run by Clive Attwell and Melvyn (Mervyn?) Jones but Clive soon became sole proprietor and the morning paper rounds were collated by Clive, Bert Barker (the school caretaker) and Doreen Giles, who's daughter, Karen, I went to primary school with and also subsequently worked in the paper shop. Mr. Barker and I used to perform the repair and maintenance of the fleet of paper bikes and I also used to clean the fleet of cars and vans on a Saturday afternoon, whilst listening to Alan Freemans Saturday rock show on the radio. I remember an Austin A49 being part of the early delivery fleet, but in my time of fleet cleaning there was a dark blue Bedford van, a red Fiat van and a gold Vauxhall Viva estate. I also remember going up to the Foxhunter caravan park at weekends to sell newspapers, cigarettes and sweets from the back of the Vauxhall Viva!