Britain’s most dedicated newspaper delivery service! 2,500,000 miles in 63 years – and not a single day off

Having never missed a day’s work in his 63 years delivering newspapers to residents across the Wolds, Alan Lawty battled snow drifts, falling trees and floods to make sure his customers received their paper each morning.

Forced into retirement last November due to needing a knee replacement, Alan said he enjoyed travelling around the villages and would still be doing it today if he could.

Driffield & Wolds Weekly reporter Debbie Sutton visited Alan at his Langtoft farm to find out what motivated him to get out of bed at 1.30am, seven days a week, 364 days a year for his paper deliveries and discovered he faced his fair share of challenges along the way.

When it comes to dedication to his work, perseverance and loyalty to his customers, you wouldn’t come across many like Alan Lawty.

The 82-year-old from Langtoft has spent the last 63 years of his life delivering newspapers to residents in 18 different villages across the Wolds.

In that time, he has clocked up an incredible two-and-a-half million miles and lost count of the number of vehicles he has owned.

But despite being faced with atrocious weather, unexpected incidents and even having a knee out of place, he never missed a delivery – something that his customers really appreciated.

“I enjoyed the work,” he told the Wolds Weekly as he recovers at home following his knee replacement.
“In summer, when the weather was good it was a grand job, it was just in the winter with the fog and the snow that it wasn’t as much fun.

“I worked every day of the year except Christmas Day, because there were papers on all the other days. I got up at 1.30am to travel to collect the papers, which latterly meant going to Menzies in Hull for them and that was before I began my round.

“I delivered to villages across the Wolds including Garton, Wetwang, Fridaythorpe, Huggate, Fimber, Thixendale, Sledmere, Duggleby, Kirby Grindalythe, West Lutton, East Lutton, Helperthorpe, Weaverthorpe, Butterwick, Foxholes, Wold Newton, Thwing, Kilham and Langtoft.

“I would usually get finished around 7am, or 7.30am-8am on a Saturday because of all the supplements.

“I would do the returns and have some breakfast and then be out on the farm by 8.15am-8.30am to bed up the yards.

“It’s never bothered me not getting much sleep, and I’ve never had a holiday – I wouldn’t know what to do on one and I’ve never had a day off. I’ve always managed to get round.”

Getting round wasn’t always plain sailing and there were many times Alan has been pulled out of snow drifts, had to be rescued when his car broke down or skidded on ice, and on one occasion a tree came crashing down on his bonnet in high winds.

“I remember one time in ‘75 or ‘76, it was really heavy snow. I went with my brother-in-law that day, we had to clear the snow to get out of the farm,” he said.

“The snow was so bad that every road we went on was blocked. We went miles and miles that day trying to get to all the villages.

“Sometimes we drove across the fields because they were frozen over and the snow had blown off a lot of them.

“Every time the road was blocked we went back to find another way, eventually we got round and finished at 6.45pm after starting at 1.30 in the morning, but we got round and everyone got a paper.

“I’ve had to be pulled out of the snow many times and before mobile phones I would have to walk to the nearest farm to get help.

“Once in Duggleby, it was really wet and I was in a petrol car that day and hit some deep water I didn’t realise was there because it was dark.

“I had to get out to walk to the telephone box to call for help and when I opened the door water poured into the car, it was that deep.

“One morning when I went to Menzies in Hull for the papers, one of the wagons had got stuck on the M62 and so I had to take what I had and then I went back again in the afternoon to get the papers from the wagon that had got stuck – that was the only day I did the round twice in one day.

“One morning I was driving on Beverley Road in Hull and a police car was behind me, from nowhere a tree came crashing down straight onto my bonnet.

“The policeman came to check I was okay and said ‘You must have used up one of your nine lives today, because another second or two and that would have been on your roof!’”

There have been several occasions when you could argue Alan put the nine lives theory to the test, making his 100 per cent delivery rate even more remarkable.

“I was stacking bales one harvest with my brother and son Steve, and I turned around quickly and put my knee out. I went to Alfred Bean and they couldn’t get it back in and said I would have to go back the next morning and have it done under anaesthetic.

“So, the next morning I did the papers with my knee out, which is probably why I’ve needed this operation on it now.

“On another occasion I was mending a conveyor and I was up on the roof and stood on a skylight and went straight through and landed on a fertiliser spinner.

“I was black and blue all over and had a cut on my head, but I was lucky because another five or six foot and I would have been on the concrete floor.

“One time coming from Duggleby in the ice, the roads like a sheet of glass, and I skidded into a fence. A wooden paling came straight through the windscreen and then through the side window and I was pinned in – I couldn’t move.”

Alan took over the deliveries from his father who started delivering papers in 1922. He had to give up in 1962 due to ill health which is when Alan took over at the age of 19.

“After the First World War my father started delivering coal by horse and cart to Langtoft. A few folks asked him if he could bring back some newspapers from Driffield and that is how it all started.

“He bought an old car and stated going around the villages asking who wanted papers and the round grew from there.

“He did it for 40 years. When I was 17, my dad got pneumonia and I had to do the round. I hadn’t passed my driving test at the point, so I went with my uncle Jack and took my father’s old round book.

“It was full of names and the villages but no addresses so it took us a while to work it out.

“We did it for a week until he got better but then two years later, he got pneumonia again and decided it was time to give it up.

“In the early days we got the papers from the railway station in Driffield when they came in on the paper trains. They opened the doors and chucked them out onto the platform.”

By the 1980s, Alan went to WH Smith in Bridlington to collect some of the papers, while others were brought to Driffield by Dave Kneeshaw from Margaret Barker’s in Bridlington.

Later, the papers were distributed by Menzies first from their Scarborough depot and latterly from Hull.
“When I first started, I delivered around 800 papers a day and it was a 108-mile round trip,” he said.

“In just over 63 years, I have covered 2,476,656 miles and in that time I’ve got through a few cars!”

Alan was often accompanied on his deliveries by his wife of 60 years Joan. Although Joan didn’t quite share her husband’s enthusiasm for getting up at 1.30 in the morning, she would frequently meet him at Kirkburn after Alan had collected the papers.

She would help him to sort them out, especially on a Saturday when the papers all had supplements, and then take out some of the papers.

Alan was three years old when his father bought Field House Farm at Langtoft, before that the family lived at Kilham Bottoms in a house rented from the Dawson family.

He recalls his father telling him about one day during the war when a German plane flew over the house and rained bullets down on the roof. Luckily the family all managed to take shelter.

In 1946 the family moved to Langtoft where Alan has lived ever since.

“I’ve loved farming. I was 12 or 13 when I first started helping riding horses at harvest.

“I was 14 when I left school and I’ve worked on the farm since then and can’t wait until my knee is better so I can get back out again. I can’t stand sitting about and doing nothing.”

Alan and Joan knew each other from spending time at the youth club in Langtoft and they were married in 1965. They have two sons Andrew and Steve and one grandson Callum.

Despite delivering the papers and working on the farm, Alan still found time for sport.

“I love sport I played football for Langtoft, cricket for Langtoft, Rudston and Brompton, darts for Langtoft and Kilham, dominoes for Langtoft and Kilham, pool for Langtoft and bowls for Langtoft,” he said.

“It’s been two years since I’ve been able to play bowls because of my knee, but I hope now I’ve had it done that I’ll be able to get back again.”

Alan thanked his loyal customers for all their support over the years.

“I had no choice than to give up delivering in the end,” he said.

“My knee got so bad that I couldn’t get around. I couldn’t carry the papers because I needed a stick and for the last three weeks, I had to go with my son Steve or my niece Kate.

“We received a lot of cards and letters from our customers when we finished, and it was lovely to hear their words of appreciation.

“I certainly have no regrets, and I’d do it all over again.”