The old fella followed the early morning sun down Bellevue Rd – just before 7am – cheese cutter, cane, a head full of opinions, and looking for an ear to bend.
He found a pair of them – just as this reporter was climbing from The Weekend Sun car to dump 50 copies of a ‘fine publication’ in a stand outside the Brookfield Food Mart, just by that crazy tangle of traffic lights.
You read right – a Sun reporter finds a story, does the interview, writes the story, might even shoot a picture if he remembers to take the lens cap off, and then on Friday delivers the newspapers.
We get our hands dirty at The Sun, there’s printers ink on those fingers – no room for blustering self-importance and egos when a small company is maximising an even smaller workforce.
It’s whatever is required and whenever.
No demarcation, no complaints.
Not many anyway.
Anyhow, Old Fella spotted The Weekend Sun car and collared me.
Damn!
And for the next 20 minutes, as he flicked through the latest edition, he banged on about everyone and everything.
Bagged the ‘bloody’ commissioners’, beat up on big business – “they’re all crooks” – and saved his biggest swipe for ‘Mr Six Percenter’ who, “ through subterfuge and BS, thinks he’s running the country”.
Poor Winnie.
Old Fella insisted we do something about it.
What’s this ‘we’ Old Fella?
For the people
Because ‘we’ don’t bring down governments, we don’t do conspiracy theories, or expose malfeasance.
We do road cones and road works, cats stuck up trees and matches and dispatches.
We are a community newspaper – of the people, for the people.
We reflect their thinking and what they’re doing.
That’s what people want, that’s what we deliver.
“Hey, people are waiting for those!” cried Jathinder Singh, rescuing me from the Old Fella.
Every day, for 14 hours a day, Jatinder runs Brookfield Foodmart & Lotto right in the shadow of a big brother supermarket.
Why would you pick that fight?
Judging by the stream of punters into his shop, Jatinder seems to make it work.
“My customers love this newspaper,” explains Jatinder. “It’s local, it’s us.”
A mirror-image of the community.
They see themselves, like Arthur King, on the front page of issue 1189.
That’s a lot of newspaper – 23 years’ worth.
There’s a reason it has endured.
It’s because people like hearing from like-minded people, and keeping abreast of local events, sharing local experiences.
Exactly like Arthur – one of only two certified snookers coaches in the country.
How else would they have known about Arthur?
Old Fella is nose deep in the latest issue, shuffling back up Bellevue Rd, still mumbling about the evils consuming him.
I love that about community newspapers.
Our newspaper is the Old Fella’s newspaper.
He has investment and ownership.
Hunter Wells delivering the Weekend Sun. Photo: John Borren.
Mini-paper run
And that’s why I’ve learned to love this gig, this delivering, because you’re out there mixing it with the folk who have featured, or will feature, or have thoughts about The Weekend Sun.
Not all of them positive or pleasant.
Unfortunately The Weekend Sun’s geography extends only from Waihi Beach to Otamarakau and halfway up the Kaimais...well short of Amritsar in the Punjab where Jatinder hails from.
“But I still read it when I have a moment.”
When he’s not arm-wrestling a living from one half of a duopoly next door.
“Can I have three please?” asks Jessie.
“They’re not all for me.”
She’s doing a mini-paper run for her neighbours, her friends, our readers.
Would you like me to Christmas wrap them for you?
“Don’t be damned cheeky,” she laughs.
All this got a man thinking.
I’ve gone the full circle in this industry during 60 years – from a newspaper run as a schoolboy, to newspaper reporter, radio and TV and back to writing for a newspaper, and delivering them.
It keeps you humble and grounded.
The giddy roundabout
It was while I was delivering newspapers around the hill suburbs of Dunedin that I developed a fascination for the printed word.
Folding Otago Daily Times in on themselves and firing them up pathways, onto balconies and at backdoors in some of the most miserable weather endured by man.
My old man told me a newspaper run was an enormous responsibility because I making a difference to people’s lives.
Meanwhile back in The Sun office the graphic designer is stand-in receptionist, the accounts manager is putting a new garden in the courtyard before emptying the dishwasher and balancing the books.
And I was on the paper run and mixing it with the punters.
Talking stuff with people.
Our people.
That’s the giddy roundabout that is a day in the life of The Weekend Sun.
See you on the beat.
Maybe.