MOGGA

WHEN I WAS ABOUT 13 YEARS OLD

Quite a few of my friends and I worked for Mogga during our school years. These included John Ellard, Dennis Hearn, David Siddle, Kevin Trotter and a few more than I can't recollect.

Mogga was a man called Maurice Wells (nicknamed 'Mogga Wells'), a lively character well-known in the bottom end of Scarborough. He was a skinny bloke with hair so short that we used to mock him, as we stood around with Beatles haircuts over our ears. Late afternoons would see Mogga walking up and down Eastborough and Newborough with a huge bundle of Scarborough Evening News under his arms, shouting at the top of his voice: "Yipp-an-eeeer" which meant "Get your newspaper here!" They were sixpence, I seem to remember. Most newspaper sellers in those days had their own call. Mogga's call was particularly piercing, so you couldn't miss him.

Mogga also owned his own shop. Well actually, it was a wooden shack painted blue at the side of Scarborough Markets which was run mostly by a little stout lady called Lil.

PHOTO: 1970 - MOGGA'S SHACK DOWN

THE SIDE OF SCARBOROUGH MARKET
(Where the people in the pic are talking)

We called it "Mogga's Shack." It sold newspapers, magazines and cigarettes, and that's about all. We all had newspaper rounds and used to turn up at about 6.30am in the morning. We'd go and buy some "hot cakes" from next door, (hot cakes are small bread buns straight out of the oven) then collect our newspapers and go in different directions to deliver them - mostly covering the entire bottom end of Scarborough, and mostly national newspapers like the Daily Mirror and daily Express. In the evening, after school about 4.30pm, we'd all turn up again to deliver another batch of the just-printed Scarborough Evening News. generally the eveing papers were a lot lighter. We delivered newspapers 5 days a week, although one or two of the team also had a Sunday round as well. Mogga paid us all around 13 Shillings a week, depending upon which round you got. Mogga's shack was demolished a few years later, so the above photo might be the only one there is of it.

My round was easy. Straight down Eastborough, all along the seafront, and then up through the houses in the shadow of the Castle. When I got paid, most of it went on buying fruit from the Quartons Fruit and flower shop a few doors up from Mogga's Shack, or on 'Hot Cakes" from the bakery-cum-cafe next door to the shack, and run by a lady called Mary who my father eventually married.

This is just an introduction to the stories surrounding working for Mogga. I've lots of stories to tell about the days working for Mogga, such as when we grouped together and called ourselves the black-hand gang and threatened to go on strike if Mogga didn't pay us more, and how I could easily have got killed riding Mogga's carrier bike laden with newspapers to head height coming back from the Scarborough Evening News printing works on Aberdeen Walk, so stay tuned.