Pakenham icon Robbie McGregor recently celebrated 50 years of delivering newspapers. Picture: Mike Richards.By Paul Dunlop
ROBBIE McGregor could be the world’s oldest paper boy.
The Pakenham icon, a teenager when he began delivering newspapers, recently turned 65 and last week celebrated 50 years in the job.
Mr McGregor, known universally as ‘Robbie’, is a wellknown and muchloved character around town.
He is commonly seen riding his bike, laden with copies of the Pakenham Gazette and other newspapers, giving residents and business operators their news fix.
Robbie has worked under six different owners at the Pakenham Newsagency and ridden the same bike for all those years.
“I’ve had a few punctures, a few repairs here and there but it’s a good bike,” he said.
“It’s part of history now.”
Robbie is the only paper deliverer still using a bike, with the rest of the newsagency’s contractors opting for cars to get around fastgrowing Pakenham.
Robbie would have delivered hundreds of thousands of newspapers over the years with generations of residents relying on him to find out what’s happening in the world.
The Melbourne Olympics in 1956, Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, the Ash Wednesday bushfires, the fall of the Berlin wall — rain, hail or shine, Robbie has delivered.
As a bonus, they get the local goingson straight from the horse’s mouth — Robbie has had a long and close association with Pakenham’s police, firefighters, paramedics and other organisations. Not much happens that Robbie doesn’t know about.
A life member of the CFA, Robbie does odd jobs for several other businesses around town. He credits another local treasurer, the late David Bourke, as giving him his first job at the Pakenham Racing Club.
“I milked cows, cut wood and cleaned up the racecourse after the races.”
Newsagency owner Rowan Higgon said when he and wife Diane took over from brothers Martin and Jake Vilcins last year, they were told that Robbie came with the business.
“He’s our star employee, he’s fantastic,” Mr Higgon said.
“Everybody knows him, he’s in and out all day long. He knows exactly what’s going on around town. He’s wonderful.”
Robbie said he still enjoyed his work and has no plans of calling it a day. Residents can rest assured they’ll see him pedalling around town on his bike for some time yet.
“It gets in your blood,” he said.
