Newsagencies have always had a wide range of products and that has changed little over the years. I have great respect for my newsagent, they fill a wide variety of niches but I can’t help wondering how long they’ll last and that can only mean sad feelings.
When I was growing up going to my Newsagency meant getting the next issue of Stitch by Stitch, they put one aside for me with my name on it every single week without fail. It meant looking for cards for birthdays or other special occasions, it meant finding magazines to read and it meant doing a bit of banking when I couldn’t get to the bank as they had short hours and I was at school during those short hours. I’m sure it meant other things to different people as there were lots of different shelves but that’s what it meant to me.
Going to a Newsagency now means looking at the different part-work magazines available and evaluating them with regards to their length, how much room they’d take up on the shelf and the final cost. When my kids were little we got the Wally’s World focussed on geography, they spent a lot of time anticipating this each week, filling out the puzzles and reading and re-reading each magazine. When they were older they collected Real Robots and made their own robot. While I’ve managed to pry Wally’s World out of their adult hands and get rid of them I haven’t tried to do the same with Real Robots. It’s a great series and thanks to the internet we were able to look up future issues on their UK website, checking out any problems they were having and see how big it would get. Some of these part-works can get very big, Book of Life has 105 parts while the Book of Life Manual of Survival only has 15.
Nowadays I go to my local Newsagent for magazines, papers, to post parcels as they have an AusPost agency, buy a scratchie and try my luck to win money, office stationery and also to have my paper delivered every week. The paper delivery has changed, it used to be delivered by a boy (or possibly a girl?) on a bike and was subject to the vagaries of the weather, now it comes thrown out of a car and is wrapped in plastic. The change in delivery personnel is due to some boys on bikes being followed by unsavoury characters and to protect them they’ve stopped bike deliveries. Bikes are much better for the environment and also really good for the youth making the delivery but some characters had to follow them and curtail deliveries.
If we don’t support our local Newsagent how will they stay in business?