Not quite what you would think, but still delivering the goods. 
1962, aged 15, Jarrow and Hebburn Co-op.
My wage was £4.7s 6d. per week. six days 0800 -1730, wednesday afternoon off. I worked through the winter of 1963 ( even until the present day one of the worst ever) Can you imagine a youth being allowed to do that now? HSE would have a fit. I often had to cross the river with the bike to deliver to the shipyard canteens at Walker and Wallsend. The basket weighed 40lbs I don’t know the weight of the bike but the only way to get it onto the ferry was to sit on the back wheel as I went down the ramp. It was even harder if the tide was out!!! Anyone who knows the area will know that the riverbanks are very steep so riding the bike when it was loaded (no gears) was pretty tough. I do quite a bit of cycling around that area now and even with my modern alloy bike with 27 gears the banks are quite demanding. I didn’t really start to grow into the fine speciman I am today 
until I was 18 and even at age 21 I only weighed 8st. This was of course the “good old days” 
Regards Kev.
At £4.7s 6d you were on cracking money for 1962 Kev, I started as an apprentice HGV mechanic in 1966 on less money than that and it was ‘Down South’ and not in the so called impoverished North! 
Had one of those bikes Myself, the ‘Rag and Bone man’ took it away for scrap eventually.
Pete.
windrush:
At £4.7s 6d you were on cracking money for 1962 Kev, I started as an apprentice HGV mechanic in 1966 on less money than that and it was ‘Down South’ and not in the so called impoverished North!Pete.
Your right about the wage Pete, the following year I went into the local shipyard as an apprentice, my wage dropped to under £3. Regards Kev.
Well Kev when I first started work in 1951, at Newgate Stores for the Co-op I was in the goods receiving dept, The entrance was on Newgste Street & was a 1 way system & came out on Darn Crook AKA St Andrews Street, It was a canny job with some real nice fellows working there, The older ones were quite helpful if you were keen to learn, I used to go out 3 times a week on a horse & cart delivering rations as they were in those days, I used to get a few tips here & there which sometimes added up to 5 or 6 bob which was a bonus because wages was only just over £2,00 IIRC, I also delivered to customers who lived in the Town on a bike like the you’ve shown, I even learned how to bone sides of bacon, The good old days Eh, Regards Larry.
Started work as an apprentice HGV mechanic on the 31st July 1962 two days before my 15th birthday on the massive wage of £2 5s 6d per week mon to fri,then on saturdays went out with either my Dad or one of the other drivers on a run to the quarries in Buxton, then on returning to the yard washed off the lorrys while they all had a pint or two in the local boozer.At 16 started to buy my own tools through the company and they took 5 shilling out of my wage to pay for them,by this time I was earning something like £3 2s 6d.Wouldnt change it for anything.
From the age of about seven my old man would say, “Stand there and don’t let any of the sheep come past you”. It was such a good job that I stayed at it for about four years, although I’m still waiting for the wages!
My next job, Saturdays & school holidays, was cleaning parts in the workshop, interspersed with washing the lorries. Every week the boss would present me with a proper wage packet with the details filled in- Gross Wages, one shilling. Income Tax, 3d. Nett Wages, 9d.
I remember those delivery bikes quite well. I got a part time job while at school for a family butchers in Bradford.One saturday morning I set out to do my deliveries in the poshest part of town off Emm Lane. Going down a long driveway two Great Danes came rushing out to me and knocked me off the bike and started to eat the meat, on hearing the noise the householder came rushing out and made the dogs bugger off. The householder then attended to me I had scrapes on both hands which he put ointment on and cooked me a bacon sandwich, getting ready to leave he said how sorry he was and gave me two fivers to go to the Elite Cinema that night [ It was only 75p admission !] not a bad result for a 15 year old kid!!
When I started as an apprentice in 1961 my take home pay for a 42 1/2 hr week including Saturday morning was £2-10 shilling and 3 pence,whenever a 3p was in the wage we got a silver 3p which I used to sell to the local butty shop for 4pence.never paid for breakfast or dinner or ciggies for first year as with adjustments to the price of fish,chips,pies and butties and short change I could make nearly another wage in a week.My first taste of business.lol. 
That was my first job too in 1961 when i left school at the good old R.A.C.S Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society ( now called the Co-Op ) it was also my delivery vehicle, only mine had a basket too. My wage was £4.05 the job was found for me by the careers people. This was an organisation who would visit schools to ask what you wanted to do, and to help you find work ( sadly they are no longer in this guise ) probably what is now the careers office and job center.
I also attended Shornells which was the training centre where they taught you work ethics in a shop environment for eg they taught you that if a customer came in for 2 slices of bacon, you would offer them a couple of eggs and a sausage how things have changed.
i did get promotion and ended up working in a very large department store for the same company, where the work ethic was still employed, so there was I in the basement in the gardening dept, so a manager called to me to watch how their head salesman conducted a sale. A customer came in and asked for some Lawn seed, the salesman said to the customer, This grass is very quick to grow, and whilst the lawn mowers were on a reduced price, would he be interested in one, to which the customer replied Yes. So the manager came over to me and said, You see, all the customer wanted was some grass seed, and old Timpson ended up selling him a lawn mower as well, lets see how you get on. So a while later I was in the Chemist helping out when a young couple came in, Good morning I said Can I help you, the lady asked for some sanitary towels, so with my quick thinking I said to the man, Can I interest you in a lawn mower, A lawn mowerhe said, Well yeah, your weekends F****D up, you may as well cut the grass`.
truckyboy:
That was my first job too in 1961 when i left school at the good old R.A.C.S Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society ( now called the Co-Op ) it was also my delivery vehicle, only mine had a basket too. My wage was £4.05 the job was found for me by the careers people. This was an organisation who would visit schools to ask what you wanted to do, and to help you find work ( sadly they are no longer in this guise ) probably what is now the careers office and job center.I also attended
Shornellswhich was the training centre where they taught you work ethics in a shop environment for eg they taught you that if a customer came in for 2 slices of bacon, you would offer them a couple of eggs and a sausagei did get promotion and ended up working in a very large department store for the same company, where the work ethic was still employed, so there was I in the basement in the gardening dept, so a manager called to me to watch how their head salesman conducted a sale. A customer came in and asked for some Lawn seed, the salesman said to the customer,
This grass is very quick to grow, and whilst the lawn mowers were on a reduced price, would he be interested in one, to which the customer repliedYes. So the manager came over to me and said,You see, all the customer wanted was some grass seed, and old Timpson ended up selling him a lawn mower as well, lets see how you get on. So a while later I was in the Chemist helping out when a young couple came in,Good morningI saidCan I help you, the lady asked for some sanitary towels, so with my quick thinking I said to the man,Can I interest you in a lawn mower, A lawn mowerhe said,
MINT
maxhagar:
I remember those delivery bikes quite well. I got a part time job while at school for a family butchers in Bradford.One saturday morning I set out to do my deliveries in the poshest part of town off Emm Lane. Going down a long driveway two Great Danes came rushing out to me and knocked me off the bike and started to eat the meat, on hearing the noise the householder came rushing out and made the dogs bugger off. The householder then attended to me I had scrapes on both hands which he put ointment on and cooked me a bacon sandwich, getting ready to leave he said how sorry he was and gave me two fivers to go to the Elite Cinema that night [ It was only 75p admission !] not a bad result for a 15 year old kid!!
Hi Mate, you wouldn’t get a bacon sandwich down Emm Lane now, its banned from that community of Bradford lads. that brings back memories, the Elite Cinema [flea pit] back row. mind you when I went it was probably a shilling.
Les.
Left school summer 62 dad drove for Dependable Products on the valley got me in as apprentice sheet metal worker 2pound a week after 6 months joined army as boy apprentice 5 Bob more stayed in 15 years came out started for van Hess anthem crows rest is history
Nice one Truckyboy - made my evening. Robert
Makes me realise how well paid I was as a lad, when I was 15 (1959) I got a Saturday job cleaning motorbikes and general dogsbody for Rickman Brothers (then famous world class scramblers now called motocross) for half a crown an hour for eight hours-pound for the day. When I left school at 16 (1960) I started my apprentaship with them and the first weeks wages were less than £4 gross for a 44 hour week, work all day Saturday half day Wednesday, so I handed in my notice, they explaned that I was being paid more than the going rate but as they knew me and I was (in their opinion) a good worker they upped my wages to £5 gross a week, notice cancelled and I stayed! My first actual transport job was for the local timber company at 17, I did a one off shed delivery from New Milton (nearish to Southampton) to Cambridge in a Standard Atlas pickup on a ‘C’ licemce restricted to 30 mph in those days, I think that may have been the defining moment that caused me to start truck driving at 21 and continue for for the next 45 years.
truckyboy
You see, all the customer wanted was some grass seed, and old Timpson ended up selling him a lawn mower as well, lets see how you get on. So a while later I was in the Chemist helping out when a young couple came in, Good morningI saidCan I help you, the lady asked for some sanitary towels, so with my quick thinking I said to the man, Can I interest you in a lawn mower, A lawn mower he said, :laughing: Well yeah, your weekends F****D up, you may as well cut the grass.
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Hope you got a rise.Brill.
I left school at Easter 1963, could have left at Christmas 1962 as I was 15. I was supposed to stay on until summer of 1963 to take exams, but decided I was going to leave at Easter as I had been persuaded to take these exams by my parents, so that I could get a good job etc.
I decided I had stayed on to long,went and told the headmaster who said " you will never be any good for any thing ". How very right he was.
I started work at a garage in Kington, was going to be an apprentice mechanic, could have gone in the office to learn that side of the job, but decided that I didn’t want to sit at a desk after having 10 years in school. So I started in the workshop side,served petrol for two weeks, so that I could man the pumps when the old boy that served went for dinner. After two weeks the foreman said go and help change some tyres, where I gained rapid promotion to senior and only tyre fitter and changer on the firm. I changed fitted and repaired car and lorry tyres and even a wheelbarrow tyre along with a few motorbike tyres. When there wasn’t any tyres to fit I swept the floors, did the servicing on vehicles when the grease monkey had his day off on a Friday.
My wage was £2.15S.0P @ week, with 10 bob stoppages. I did this for five months, then moved to a factory for 18 months earning a lot more money, but was bored out of my mind by the monotony. I then went on to the building with a Kington firm labouring and driving a Benford dumper carrying about a ton top whack,as a lot of the older blokes couldn’t drive,I was driving a van load of blokes to the site’s and back night and morning, and getting a mans wage. When one of the drivers of a BMC FG went off sick,I was put on that and was doing over a thousand miles a week delivering and collecting building materials to sites, also collecting materials from suppliers. Then onto a Bedford TK on quarry work and so on which is what I had always wanted to do do…drive lorries.
Cheers Dave.
speed merchant ! i had to make do with a bike .
I got rid of the side valve after persuading the local manager that it was clapped. They gave me a brand new 107E (Anglia) van which was a real treat for a 17-year old!
kevmac47:
Not quite what you would think, but still delivering the goods.
My wage was £4.7s 6d. per week. six days 0800 -1730, wednesday afternoon off. I worked through the winter of 1963 ( even until the present day one of the worst ever) Can you imagine a youth being allowed to do that now? HSE would have a fit. I often had to cross the river with the bike to deliver to the shipyard canteens at Walker and Wallsend. The basket weighed 40lbs I don’t know the weight of the bike but the only way to get it onto the ferry was to sit on the back wheel as I went down the ramp. It was even harder if the tide was out!!! Anyone who knows the area will know that the riverbanks are very steep so riding the bike when it was loaded (no gears) was pretty tough. I do quite a bit of cycling around that area now and even with my modern alloy bike with 27 gears the banks are quite demanding. I didn’t really start to grow into the fine speciman I am today
So if you delivered on a shop bike, you’ll know how the Hovis delivery boy felt pushing it uphill, but I do remember these bikes lots of shops had them in those days. :-“Old” Jack