Paul was also hanging around at home and soon had his father to contend with. Jim hadn’t wanted him to leave school and go to Hamburg in the first place. He said Paul should now get a job and not just mess around doing nothing. ‘Satan finds things for idle hands,’ so Jim told Paul, with great originality, several times a day. Paul, never a rebel on principle and always willing to please, eventually gave in. ‘I went down to the Labour Exchange. That seemed to be the scene. They fixed me up with a job as second man on a lorry. I’d been on the Post Office the Christmas before from school, so I thought I’d try something different. ‘The firm was called Speedy Prompt Delivery – SPD. They did deliveries round the docks way. I got the early bus down to the docks and bought the Daily Mirror, trying to be a real working lad, though I was really just a college pudding. ‘I used to sit on the back of the lorry and helped to carry parcels. I was so buggered sometimes. I fell asleep on the lorry when we went to places like Chester. I was with them about two weeks and felt very worldly, having a job and a few quid in me pocket. But I got laid off. The Christmas period was over and there wasn’t so much work. ‘Dad started moaning again, the usual stuff about the group being all very well but I’d never make a living at it. I half agreed with him, but there was always somebody who said we were promising, some fans liked us and made us feel good. ‘I got another job at Massey and Coggins, winding electrical coils. I had to wear a donkey jacket for that. A fellow called me Mantovani, with me long hair. I had to stand astride this winch and wind the coils. I was always breaking it. I did about one and a half coils in a day, some of the others could do eight, even 14. I wasn’t much good. ‘The tea breaks were great, though, with jam butties and all the lads playing football in a sort of prison exercise yard. ‘I’d actually gone, now it’s all coming back to me, for a job brushing up the yard, which I thought would be all right. When the bloke noticed I had a few GCEs, he became suspicious, as if I might have a criminal record as well. Then he decided I was OK and gave me a better job, which was winding the coils. He said if I stuck in I’d be all right. I imagined myself as working my way up, being an executive one of these days, if I tried hard. ‘I was getting £7 a week for winding coils and making the tea. The group had got going again but I didn’t know if I wanted to go back full-time. I stayed on at work, just going over the wall for lunchtime sessions or being off sick. But I left in the end. I was there about two months all together. I quite enjoyed being a working man. I met this bloke Albert and had some good chats with him.’ ‘I’ll say this for Paul,’ says his father Jim. ‘He was always a tryer. He wasn’t really interested in either job. It was just to oblige me.’
the beatles, hunter davies
