TIP TOP!

HISTORIAN MERVYN EDWARDS RECALLS WHEN CITY MILKMEN, PAPERBOYS AND POSTIES WERE QUIDS IN AT CHRISTMAS

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EVERYONE’S after your money at Christmastime, aren't they? Least-ways, this was the view of one poet whose carping versification graced the columns of this newspaper 120 years ago yesterday. He lamented, in a mini-masterpiece called Christmas Tips:

“Christmas comes but once a year, And when it comes it makes you fear, What with the postman, book in hand, Who confidently makes demand. Then the dustman grinning broad, With his pal, the man who sweeps the road, The butcher, milkman, baker, tramp, Vie with the man who lights the lamp.”

Personally, I was by no means averse to soliciting cash considerations myself as a newspaper delivery boy for Proctor’s newsagent in Wolstanton in the 1970s - around 30 years after my own father had done similar in the Westlands area of Newcastle. I’m happy to say that my own paper round covered some of the more affluent streets in Wolstanton so that I was well rewarded by the caviar and truffles brigade in Park Avenue. Yes, it's true that I sometimes had to awkwardly sidestep a Bentley and a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow in some of the drives as I made my way to a front door, but it was worth it for the promise of a 50p piece, which represented a decent gesture in those days.

However, have there been times in history where the giving of what we used to call a Christmas Box has threatened to get out of hand?

Well, what about those postmen, who formerly trudged for miles through rain and sleet, up and down snow-swept Kidsgrove Bank or up Penkhull New Road, which makes the Matterhorn look like a speed-bump? Surely they deserved our largesse at Christmastime?

Not according to some Sentinel letter-writers of the distant past. There was quite a debate on this matter back in 1930.