Just About Me 16

I gave the Ice Cream van the elbow a few months later, and went back on the milk with another company. Express Dairies in Ives St, SW3, the manager who interviewed me was called Mr Anthony, he was a lovely down to earth man who loved a chat, he told me I could be his team captain at the interview, an interview that lasted three and a half hours, he said that he wanted me to be his "Ronnie Harris". I thought he was potty at the time but what a pep talk, you actually wanted to work for him. I was given a round in Kensington, W8 and delivered to some very wealthy people, I earned an absolute fortune on this job one way and another, they were not your 2 pints a day 4 on a Saturday mob, no they wanted a weeks shopping delivered, and I went out of my way to help them out, no not that way, I mean carrying the shopping and a Mars bar for the kids. I could earn, with commission and tips and perks, wait for it, between £600 and £1000 a week. no bullshit. This was approx 1983, with hindsight I should and could of bought houses for cash, but not me, I would go to smart restaurants and fancy cocktail bars with drinks at £3 each when the price of a pint was about 60p.
This was fine until one day the dairy decided to sell the Ives St depot to a property developer, so we all got the hump and occupied the depot for 10 weeks, we were probably the only strikers to have a bigger strike fund than the defence bill for Somalia, well at first anyway. We had such a good time on strike I have to say, me and another bloke Alan Turpin snuck out one Saturday and went to watch Chelsea play away at Derby in the cup, Alan was a bit of a boy, and we went in the away section and got moved out by the police, they escorted us round the pitch to the Chelsea  section, bang on the half way line was a tasty little Derby firm who started spitting at us two and throwing 50p coins at us, Alan was off half way over the fence to speak to them whilst I scrambled around picking up 50p pieces, well we were on strike after all.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYUID1PME_4
The strike came to an end with the promise of a job at the Shepherds Bush depot, and a party which I will tell you about in the next section, and by now myself and my future brother in law Paul Sime went to work there, Paul had joined Express just before the strike and saw it through with the rest of us. The only downside of earning a lot of money on a milk round is that it is difficult to go on holiday, because you had to show the relief guy where you earned some of your money, and that's how I got the sack, some jealousy and a few chosen words to the guvnor and Bobs your uncle out the door. Two things came out of getting the push were that Paul Sime ( 5ft 6ins) became known as big Paul and I became skint.