HERE is the weekly history column written Peter Holme.

Kendal Oral History Group, through interviews, aims to compile a picture of earlier times through the memories of some of the area’s older residents.

David Little was born in 1937 and interviewed in 2006

I was born in the Kendal Hospital, Helme Chase wasn’t built until 1939.

We lived on Low Fellside and I went to Dean Gibson School. We all did although we weren’t Catholics.

We walked to school. I didn’t have a bike until I started doing a newspaper round, the Lancashire Post paper round six nights a week. I used to stand where the Liberal Club is selling the ‘Post.

The Lancashire Posts would arrive around three o’clock. There used to be a blank column on the front page called the “Stop Press” and Bob Newby used to get the late horse racing results printed somewhere in Sandes Avenue. Then I’d set off with a bag full of Posts, about one hundred and forty in it.

Started on the top of Beast Banks then down Gillingate, along the bottom of Kirkbarrow up to the top of Kirkbarrow, right down the other side to Vicarage Parks and Vicars Drive, Barnholme, Long Close and finish at the Vicarage - Bob’s house.

I used to get ten bob (50 pence) for the paper round. The Lancashire Post used to be six days for eleven pence.

But when I collected the money they used to give me a shilling and didn’t ask for the penny change. So a hundred and odd pennies was quite a lot of money then.

When I finished it was one shilling and seven pence – they usually gave me a shilling, a sixpenny piece and a threepenny bit – One and ninepence. I eventually bought a Raleigh Robin Hood bike to help me deliver the papers.

When I got to fourteen I was going to go to Martins Farm, at Helsington Laithes. The biggest farm in Westmorland was Martins Farm. I started going there when I was eight years old.

I was never away, every night, every weekend I was down there sheep shearing, cutting lamb’s tails off, milking cattle driving the tractor, ploughing. However my mother wanted me to go to Summerlands for a “professional” job.

It included night school and every exam I passed they used to give me twenty-five pounds. Very few companies did that. I carried on into Accountancy. Then I went to Australia.