One of Britain’s oldest paperboys has let neither lockdown nor advancing years get in the way of bringing news to his community.
Fighting fit after celebrating his 80th birthday at the weekend and getting his coronavirus jab, George Bailey was back out on his bike on Tuesday despite the chilly winter morning.
The octogenarian woke up with night still shrouding his village in Kent and headed out, as he does each day, to collect the papers.
“I keep saying every Christmas I’m going to pack it in,” he told the PA news agency.
But as each year rolls around the great-grandfather keeps on cycling round the village of Headcorn distributing the various national and local newspapers.
The shop he delivers for, Oldfields newsagents on High Street, finds it hard to recruit paperboys nowadays so Mr Bailey continues his daily round as he has for the last decade.
The two-and-a-half mile trip he does every day takes him about an hour and sees him get up around 6am.
“I enjoy the summer when you can wear shorts.
“If it’s raining you get absolutely swamped with water.
“I didn’t enjoy the last few days when I had to to come home and change my clothes.”
When he was 11 years old Mr Bailey picked up a paper round like many other boys his age.
But his return to the route as a pensioner puts him in rarefied company as certainly one of the oldest paperboys in the country.
Mr Bailey’s varied life has seen him work as a stockbroker, at manufacturer Unigate for nearly 10 years and on a local golf course.
On Sunday he celebrated his 80th birthday, an occasion made more special by getting the coronavirus jab just days before.
