By Bob Murphy 

I was fascinated by aircraft as a boy, my father being in the RAAF during war time. In mid April 1948 I was 14 years old when I read in the situations vacant, ‘Boy wanted to drop newspapers from an aeroplane.’ I could hardly believe my eyes. I hot-footed it to Airlines of W.A. Ltd in Mill Street, Perth next to Adelphi Hotel only to be told Mr Bassett would not be back until 7 pm. I refused to go home and waited.

Mr Bassett took one look at me and said, “you’re way to small to handle the job but as you waited all this time you can start tomorrow.” The paper was the Daily News Air Edition and a ute-load would arrive at lunch time Perth Airport. The bundles were wrapped in old newsprint and tied with binder twine weighing 14lb (6.3kg) and then stacked into the aircraft seats in dropping order – Bunbury, Donnybrook, Busselton, Capel, Brunswick, Harvey, Yarloop, Waroona, Pinjarra.

The aircraft was VH UFF: a DH89 Rapide with two beautiful gypsy six 200 hp 6 cylinder engines and a more graceful aircraft has never graced the sky before or since and never will. Take off was around 1 p.m. and we would overfly a small town with bush around it for miles. Mandurah then; hardly a house in sight until Bunbury.

The last seat on the right hand side was removed and a lift trapdoor was then exposed. Unknown fortunately to the passenger previously occupying that seat. I then put on a waist belt with a cable attached
to the rear bulkhead giving me about one metre of movement. I would stack the bundles marked with the town name. At the edge of the trapdoor point the pilot would yell drop and also his arm would wave downward in case I couldn’t hear him…but I always did. The Rapide was later sold, went North and was sadly destroyed by a fire.

An Avro Anson replaced the Rapide and a chute was made to stack the bundles on and a lever dumped them through the left hand side through two small hinged doors (removed) that were probably originally used for flares life raft drops etc.

I worked for Airlines W.A. for quite a while doing this 6 days a week and got a sizeable number of hours in the Rapide but a lot more in the Anson. Most of the pilots were ex-RAAF and mostly a bit slack by today’s standard in procedure but certainly not ability. They would let me sit in the left seat on a bundle of papers and show me how to handle the docile aggie. Much later, and when I was more experienced, they would retreat to the closest passenger seat and read the on board magazines giving me ‘control’ from about Rockingham to descent time from Bunbury. This would happen at least four times a week as some pilots wouldn’t even think about it and I never let on about the good guys.
All this came to an abrupt halt with the introduction of the Bays high speed V8, one ton utes. We could not compete and I sadly left Airlines WA. Perhaps some older aviators may remember the great characters I was privileged to work with.

Frank Doggett, Bob Elliot, Keith Hahn, Alan Boothy, Tom Scott, Boots Lawrence and the pilots, Colin Cook, George Meadows, Ken Beer, Nelson Hill, Ross Watts, Howard Wheatley, Max Taylor. When I think about it now, all but a very few of those characters are with us today. An era that’s gone and can only be seen in old films and vintage air displays and museums. But for a brief moment I was very much a part of it and the memory is alive and well in me to this day. I have many stories to tell of that non-jet era but space has run out so perhaps another time.