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John Oldale born 1930s
I used to do a paper round for Chettles to earn a bit of money. I spent a lot of time there and they took me under their wing.
Dennis was a keen gardener and he taught me how to garden. Their daughter Mary collected the money and I used to go with her.
My round started at Chettles, along Chapman Lane and down it, up Green Dragon Lane, down Blind Lane and on a Sunday we then did
Northern Woods up to the shop. I did it from 12 to 16 and I started my apprenticeship when I was 15 so I was doing the paper
round before I went to work.
Barbara Murfin nee Sarney born 1940s
Chettles – paper round
On Wednesdays and Sundays the papers were too heavy to do in one go. The Bucks Free Press was on Wednesday. So I had to deliver the first lot, go back to Chetts for the second lot. Mrs Chettle always gave us two sweets to eat on the way round. She was best. Dennis sometimes forgot. These were unwrapped, Paregoric cough sweets, barley twists, Everton mints, a couple of Victory V's shoved into a pocket while you picked up your papers. Most days I got to Chetts about 6.30 they were always ready, each paper written on, with the name or number of each recipient. Any mistakes you had to back track, keep your fingers crossed the paper had not moved from the letter box and swop it as quietly as you could. The second sweet always seemed to be covered in lots of fluff, I used an old too small raincoat to do my round in. Where the bag was on my side and the sleeves were black from the ink. They used hot metal presses for printing in those days. If you did not wear gloves it took ages to get your hands clean. If there was a picture of any Beatle on the front page the round took just a little longer as I gazed at my idols. We had a dog called Kim, a Standard Poodle Spaniel cross. He loved to help carrying the next paper. They were never ever wet he was so gentle.
Daddy Chett whizzed backwards and forwards to Northern Woods and to Buckingham Way, delivering bags of papers ready for the boys and girls to deliver so they would not have to collect them from the shop which was by the Temperance Hall, it’s houses now. Daddy Chett was a cobbler, leather apron, tacks in his mouth, glue pot on the stove. He worked from a lean-too shed at the Temperance Hall side of the shop. The counter was too high for a small child to see over as it was a shelf above the work bench. Daddy Chett, must have held the longest provisional license for a moped. Pop-pop.
In all the years he delivered papers he never took/passed his test or should I say removed his L plates. I can still see him now, he was a short man hunched over the handle bars of his moped. Piles of full bags of papers stacked on a carrier over the back wheel, flat out at about 15 mph. Chettles must have done well because the old shop and shed was replaced with a double fronted shop within a house. Sweets, papers and cigarettes, fireworks in season. I think Daddy Chett stopped his shoe repairs when the new shop was built. Mummy and Daddy Chett retired and Dennis and his sister were left to run the shop. Mummy and Daddy Chettle, that's how they were known because that's how they spoke to you. Daddy would say "I will go and ask Mummy'' and vice versa. I don’t think I ever heard their real names.
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