Gardener, 88, hangs up trowel but he’s still delivering papers

AT 88 years old, Ron Tappin can lay claim to being the oldest paperboy in the country.

And until this week, he had been working as a gardener at a large house as well.

Mr Tappin gets up at 5am for his daily paper round that takes in parts of Watlington, where he has lived most of his life, as well as Pyrton and Lewknor.

The former postman says he doesn’t need an alarm clock and always wakes up at 4.45am ready to start his day.

For the last five years, he has worked from Monday to Saturday for newspaper wholesale and delivery company Brighton’s.

He usually finishes his round by 8.30am before returning home for breakfast.

Mr Tappin is also still doing odd gardening jobs for a handful of customers, which takes up the rest of his morning so he has the afternoon to relax.

He said: “While you’re fit, I think it’s best to carry on. It’s no good sitting around.

“I’ve seen so many people of my age group finish work, don’t do anything and within a couple of years, that’s it, they’re gone. I like to keep going.”

Mr Tappin, who used to deliver newspapers for the Co-op in Couching Street for three years until the service ceased, was approached by Brighton’s with the offer of a job.

He drives to Ewelme in his Ford Fiesta every morning to pick up the paper bundles before delivering national newspapers and the Henley Standard on Fridays.

Mr Tappin said: “I get up at 5am but because I used to work for the Post Office it’s nothing new to me, I’m so used to it.

“I automatically wake up at about 4.45am. Mind you, I go to bed at about 9pm.”

Mr Tappin said he liked the routine, adding: “It is the money as well. It’s surprising the amount of outlay you have.

“I’ll just carry on doing it until I can’t do it anymore, quite
honestly.

“A lot of people I speak to don’t believe my age. They are surprised I’m still doing a paper round. They always say to me, ‘How do get up so early?’

“There’s a woman in Lewknor I deliver to. She’s about the same age as me and she always comes out every morning to get her paper.”

Mr Tappin, who lives in Brook Street, with his daughter Shelly, has hung up his gardening tools this week at a garden in Turville Heath created by the Major Tom Bird, a hero of Alamein, who died in 2017, aged 98.

He has looked after the garden, which is almost two acres, for about 30 years and when Maj Bird died the family insisted that he stayed on.

Maj Bird’s son Nicky said: “He was part of the place; he maintained the borders and lawns to rival any National Trust home.”

The property has just been sold and Mr Tappin thought the time was right to say goodbye. He initially took the job after the Birds responded to his advert.

Mr Tappin explained: “When I worked at the Post Office I was just doing it part-time and I thought, ‘I’m going to have to earn us some more money’ so I started gardening.

“I’ll never forget when I went there for an interview, Mrs Bird said, ‘Can you cut a straight hedge?’

“I enjoy gardening. It’s being outdoors and you achieve something.

“You can see the results of your hard work. It’s good to get out and beats sitting in a chair.”

The Birds recommended Mr Tappin to other residents in the area and he still tends to the gardens of about four other customers.

He said: “One place I go they have a sit-on mower so that’s dead easy. People know I’m getting on a bit so they don’t tell me to do so much as I used to.”

Mr Tappin was born in Lower Dean and grew up on his grandfather Ernest Tappin’s farm in Britwell Salome. As a five-year-old boy, he would walk to school in Watlington.

He recalled an incident during the the Second World War, saying: “A Liberator bomber just missed our school and crashed in flames. It was horrendous.”

After renting a cottage in Brook Street, the family moved to Mr Tappin’s current home in 1968.

He left school at 14 and worked as a tailor’s cutter in Oxford. He cut the suits of lots of celebrities, including newsreader Reggie Bosanquet.

In 1951 he was called up to the RAF and was an air traffic control assistant at RAF West Malling in Kent, working in the control tower.

However, most of his time in the service was spent in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, building airstrips and guarding them against insurgents.

“I missed the coronation but met the Queen mum and Princess Margaret,” he said. “I travelled all over Africa. It rather spoilt family caravan trips to Sussex beaches in my caravan — I had seen enough sand for a lifetime.”

He returned to his tailoring job but found he could make three times as much money at Morris Motors in Oxford, where he made the seats to go in the cars.

He took voluntary redundancy at age 50 and was a postman for 13 years before retiring.

Mr Tappin met his wife Paddy, who died in 2018, when he was a dance teacher.

As a young man, he had been one half of a partnership teaching people “old time” dance.

He and his then dance partner visited Chinnor to teach a group which included Paddy and her mother.

The couple were married for 61 years and had four children, Shelly, Christopher, Nicholas and Simon.

They enjoyed dancing together and once won a cup at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool, dancing the veleta.

Mr Tappin was also a scout leader in Watlington and was a member of the parish council for five years in the Eighties.

He is still a trustee of the Watlington Support Fund but plans to retire in about a year’s time.

His daughter said: “People here still like to read news in newspapers but who nowadays is happy to get out of bed before 5am and deliver their papers in gloom and rain? My dad.”