First class thrill when it's not a bill
From the The Bolton News, first published Saturday 25th Aug 2007.
THE excitement of receiving something you have ordered through the post never really leaves you.
As a 10-year-old, just having taken a serious interest in sport, I placed a regular order for Roy of the Rovers and Tiger and Scorcher comics. I could have just walked up the road to the newsagents to pick them up, but having them delivered seemed so much more dramatic. Also, it meant my mum would pay for them as part of the weekly paper bill rather than me having to fork out some of my spending money.
Roy of the Rovers meant Saturdays, which generally went something along the lines of get up, watch Saturday Superstore and Football Focus on TV, a local soccer match in which my dad was playing, back home for Final Score, fish and chips then Match of the Day - bang on.
Sometimes R of the R failed to arrive, which, once I'd recovered from the terrible disappointment, only served to heighten anticipation on Monday morning when Tiger and Scorcher was also due. Double good.
Prior to my awakening to the wonderful world of comics, Monday mornings had been something to dread. But no more.
Then, as I grew older and had even more money (say a pound a week) I would send off for football programmes and get up early every morning in anticipation of their arrival.
As I moved to my late teens and stopped the comics and gave up collecting programmes, post became something that only existed in the world of my parents. No-one wrote to me (a bit like now), I didn't receive demands from utility companies (unlike now) and junk mail had not really taken off.
Then the bills started and, alongside letters from charities and banks offering loans (presumably on the grounds that they had realised I was a trustworthy individual who, while being entirely capable of paying off a lend of a huge wadge of wonga, was unable to earn enough to pay for my insatiable thirst for beer and comics), it was mostly just death threats.
My post hinterland life has been partially saved by the likes of email - but it's not the same as receiving a real letter - Amazon and ebay, which enable you to order random items you just might need one day but the delivery of which makes you look more popular than you actually are.
This has enabled me to rediscover the excitement of waiting for deliveries; arriving home in the evening and carefully pushing open the door to discover that IT hasn't arrived and, when it does, ripping open the packet to find that it contains exactly what I ordered, which is strangely disappointing.
Recently I have found myself subscribing to a couple of music magazines that have brought back the memories of waiting for comics all those years ago.
It must suggest that I have something lacking in my life, but I have once again found the excitement rising inside me as magazine time approaches. No doubt in later life this will fade as time goes on and be replaced by some new form of letterbox-related thrill - gardening (a copy of Grow It! perhaps) or crown green bowls related. Or, just as likely, regular communication from a doctor.
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