I was in about Year 8 or 9 at school and Shepparton introduced a new free newspaper called Goulburn Valley Leader.
I had a delivery round which was close to home. We delivered them on a Wednesday evening, and we collected them from Mr Courtney in Hayes St, who incidentally was also a crossing supervisor (lollipop man) outside St Mel’s in Archer St every school day.
One evening a friend of mine from school said he would meet me on a corner with his bike and help deliver the papers, halving the workload and then we could do what we wanted. He returned from the section I gave him in record time. Unfortunately, I found out days later when Mr Courtney arrived at our front doorstep, that my mate had also recorded a record number of complaints with papers on house rooves, in gutters and in bushes and strewn along the street. Valuable lesson learnt. I think I still have the red and white "G V Leader" cap we wore.
While still at school I applied for a part-time job at Ollie's Trolley via the CES noticeboard which was located at a (now demolished) building in Maude St.
I turned up to be told by the manager that he didn’t want a boy but a girl, but he wasn’t allowed to stipulate that. The boys worked out the back cooking the chicken etc while the girls worked out front of store. Reluctantly, he put me on and I was doing pretty well, but he had too many boys.
His way of reducing staff, as he couldn’t sack us, was just reduce shifts to the extent you virtually had none. I tried to meet with him several times but he avoided me, knowing what he was doing was wrong. Week after week I would go in and see that I wasn't rostered. So eventually I just never went back.
Would be funny if I went there now and I was still on the roster — 38 years later!
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