Bhaskar’s era at Crouch Street News 2022-2024
Back in the dark days of lockdown I just wondered how I could get outside home and get some exercise trying not to put on so much weight. I asked in Maldon Road Spar initially if I could deliver some newspapers for them and they pointed me in the direction of Crouch Street News.
It was the 18th April 2022. Crouch Street News was in a pretty bad way. Some of the paper boys were dumping their rounds on the street to be recovered by the police.
I helped to save them for a while doing up to three rounds on a regular basis. On occasions I even did five and was delivering for half a day walking over 10 miles. I worked for the great late Bhaskar Patel. I got to know virtually every street in Lexden, Braiswick, and St Marys and every of the 7 rounds in detail, shadowing all and sundry if they had time off.
Amazing Pay
Although we weren’t paid that much £3 a round initially. Sometimes, he would push £7.50 into my hand for doing an extra long round. There was a shortage of paper boys in that era and indeed I had to do almost everything to save the business myself with Bhaskar.
I was rewarded though with up to £105 a week for doing 105 drops a day. After my first year I had to declare my earnings and astonishingly, I paid £38.60 income tax on my paper round!
I had earned over £4000 in that year even with a £1000 deduction for small business expenses.
It got my fitness levels up to the max and kept my insulin resistance low as a diabetic and my fitness levels high.
The arrival of Szoni Patel in Baskhar’s Official Retirement
The first year Szoni took over the business he was extremely kind and took us all for a meal at Curry Night to show us corporate hospitality.
A number of the paper men were there and were allowed anything on the menu which I thought was generous. He was a great boss as well.
The Next Generation
Eventually, Szoni sold the newspaper business and shop on to some younger siblings and they were not so good to me, but Bashkar rescued me from the fire once more.
He head hunted me for a new project with his friend doing a long round with up to 43 drops It was 7 miles going all the way up Maldon Road area and into into the Shrub End Estate every day.
I got 50 pounds a week for delivering them including to our local MP and her friends.
Eventually, Bhaskar died shortly after his wife who had been very ill and whom he had cared for.
His son sometime before that and it was really nice that Bhaskar gifted me some of his clothes including a silk orange shirt and a new coat. It was testament to what a father figure he’d become to me saving the business for his family.
I liked him too and he gave me this glowing reference from the new company. News Plus operating with cars out of Great Horkesly.
The Letter of Reference from:
Bhaskar Patel
Colchester
CO3
To whom it may concern
This is to certify that Mr. Hugh Waldock worked for me at Crouch
Street News from November 2022 until 15th Jan 2025, and there
after at 10 Blackbrook Road, Colchester. His duties were to sort
out daily newspapers as per customer orders and arrange them and
plan them to deliver in the best easy and quicker way. He is very
good and efficient and successful in doing that, and kept our
customers very happy giving their papers very early in the morning.
He has done up to 3/4 rounds and earned sometimes £105 per
week at our Crouch Street News shop. Presently, he is successfully
doing a very big and long round, which involves 40 drops and
nearly 5.5 miles. Hugh is very hard working, reliable, and punctual
in doing his duties. Presently, he is earning £50 a week.
I will be pleased to confirm the contents of this letter at any time .
Bhaskar Patel
The Holi Party 2025
Happy Holi
I had become friends with the Indian community in Colchester to the extent that I attended the Colchester Indian Association Holi Party event at First Site 2025 to celebrate the Indian Festival of the same name. I took part in the ritual of the fire, and threw colours at the other participants, watched the Indian dancing and had a bit of a boogie.
The Rusty Nail and the Snake
The first problem I had on the round was being bitten by an adder and my leg becoming incapacitated and my feeling faint. I only just got home and could barely walk.
The second thing that happened was a rusty nail going right through my sandal and foot, and causing some kind of sepsis and I had to have three weeks off during which time I couldn’t walk. I thus lost my job as I always do my rounds on foot rather than with a bike or in the car.
Mohat and Maldon Road Spar
A few weeks later another member of the Patel family, Mohat, invited me to do some marketing for him.
The story with this was that Crouch Street News had gone bust and reformed as a pure newspaper delivery service without the shop. In so doing they left their customers in the lurch for about 12 weeks with no deliveries.
Mohat saw an opportunity to use me to poach some dissatisfied customers and he employing me to do some leafleting, but I had also formed relationships with many of the customers down the years who had been impressed with my service, that he hadn’t anticipated.
Due to having had the skills campaigning politically for the local MP in 2024 I knocked their doors and asked those people that liked me whether they wanted me back again, this time working for Maldon Road Spar.
I got a number of new customers that way as they were as much my customers as they were theirs. They weren’t very nice to them until the new business got going so many of my former customers liked me and responded.
Off the back of that I was able to construct just one round for £25 pounds a week of 3.7km for the exercise and to keep me in buisness.
I do my little round every day 7 days a week delivering to the following:
Crouched Friars Nursing Home
Salter Court Residential Home
Topfield
St Albans Road
Oaks Drive
Sussex Road
The Round Itself
There are 16 drops on a weekday and up to 19 at the weekend. It’s a nice manageable work load whilst studying and gives me 100 pounds extra per month on my money.
It’s a little job anyway and I like it.
Befriending Service and Tips.
Over the years, there are a couple of customers who became friends and whom I’ve visited locally chatting to these people in order to help them not feel as lonely.
I enjoy because one of them gives me a bonus every now and then and we both like a chat.
Off the back of that, I extended this idea to starting a group on the Next Door platform for lonely people called Lonely Colchester which last time I looked now has 84 members.
Gratuities are always paid at Christmas time and can be quite generous indeed. They are our so called Christmas Boxes. I do this lovely little job for exercise and pleasure now because I know and like the elite people in the area.
It helps reduce insulin resistance ans keep my Type II diabetes in check.
