Figure 1.--Here we see a 1960s English photograph showing an errand boy on his bicycle. He is making a delivery for a butcher.

Errand boys continued to be a coomon site on British streets into the 1960s. Boys were often employed by shops to take small deliveries to customers. After World War II these deliveries were commonly made by bicycles. I'm not sure about the ages of the boys involved, but think they were often teenagers that had left school. In the case of the errand boy seen here you can tell the boy was employed by a butcher because of the coat he is wearing (figure 1), A HBC reader writes, The coat he is wearing is similar to the one I wore when I worked for Walls." By the 1970s these home deliveries became less and less common. I'm not sure precisely why.

A reader writes, "You may be interested to know that my second job after I left school was as a Van Boy for a firm called Walls. They specialised in foods such as ice-cream, sausages, pies and bacon among other things. I assisted the salesman who took the order from a shopkeeper or department head if we visited a store like Woolworth’s for example and then I went to the van to make that order up. As soon as we finished the last shop we did the stock and balanced this against the cash taken or credit notes returned. When we returned to the depot I unloaded any items that were returned because of being past their sell by date and then I went to the refrigerator in the warehouse and got the stock ready for the next day. I was only allowed to work so many hours a week (42 in 1962) and if I exceeded the maximum amount of hours worked I was given a day off. I liked the job as it meant travelling around the area where I lived rather than being stuck in one place. I was paid bonuses for putting up promotional posters in shop windows and for washing and cleaning out the van. I was also paid a laundry allowance for my uniform, which was a navy blue dustcoat that had white vertical stripes down the material and as I was working with food, even though it was packaged I had to wear a navy blue beret."

Created: February 14, 2004
Last updated: February 15, 2004