AS the newspaper world grows ever more hi-tech, with computers, digital cameras and printing press consoles like the flight deck of Concord, it's perhaps reassuring to know ultimately it all relies on Lyndon Maisey and his bike.

Machines might let you down, but never the Maisey family, who have been delivering the Evening News through rain, sleet, snow and tempest for more than 80 years.

In the autumn of 2000, when floods had the swans swimming on our front doorstep and brought chaos to Worcester's Westside, Lyndon calmly loaded his batch of papers into his bike's front pannier and cycled up a steep path at the rear of our works into Henwick Road.

From there he peddled into the middle of St John's and then out towards Powick, where he turned left on to the South Link highway.

Going like a good 'un, he dodged the traffic for a good mile until reaching the Ketch roundabout, where he turned left again and sailed down Bath Road into the city centre, every newspaper still on board and him barely out of breath.

Then it was on to the start of his round in The Arboretum.

"That journey took me about three quarters of an hour," said Lyndon. "It was a bit longer than the four minutes is usually takes me nipping over the Sabrina Bridge.

"But I was the first with newspapers in the middle of Worcester. All the vans got stuck in traffic because they couldn't get across the main bridge."

Devotion to the Evening News cause - or the Evening News and Times cause, as it used to be - has been part of Maisey family life since just after the First World War, when Lyndon's grandfather Ernie first balanced papers on his bike.

The tradition was maintained by Ernie junior, Lyndon's dad, until he died in 1989, but not before handing his cycle clips and pannier basket on to his son.

"I used dad's old bike for a while, but six years ago I bought a new one. It's a lot lighter, but the best thing about it is that it's got a stand," Lyndon explained.

"Now I can leave it wherever I want to. I always used to have to prop dad's bike against a kerb or a lamp-post or something like that and it was always likely to topple over, which was a real nuisance when it was full of papers."

Recently he celebrated 30 years delivering the Evening News, having started in 1972 at the age of nine.

"Dad used to give me about 20 papers in a shopping bag to take up the steep roads in the Goodrest area.

"He thought I could do that because I was young and he didn't fancy it. But it puffed me out.

"Later I had about 80 papers to deliver and I thought that was a lot, but since dad died I've been doing the whole round and that's nearly 300 papers.

"I don't know whether it's me, but they seem much heavier than they used to. I think it's all the supplements you get in them now."

One result of this extra load is Lyndon's always having to replace the spokes in his bike wheels.

"They bend under the strain," he said. "Punctures don't bother me if they happen out on the round, because I just leave the bike at a house and deliver the papers on foot. It's quicker than mending a puncture."

Ever since Ernie senior began all those years ago, the Maiseys have always had the Arboretum and Goodrest areas as their patch, even though their home has been on the other side of the river in Dines Green.

"You get to know all the folk and they know me," said Lyndon.

"People always knew what time of day it was when they heard my father shouting as he wheeled his bike around the streets, now they can tell the same thing when they hear the screech of my bike stand on the pavement."

You see he doesn't have his dad's voice, which was described, quite accurately, as a cross between a foghorn and a shovel scraping gravel off concrete.

As well as two deliveries of the Evening News every day - lunchtime and mid-afternoon - Lyndon rises at 5am each Sunday to deliver the Sunday papers.

These are so heavy, he puts both them and his bike into the back of his van and drives out to the centre of his round.

Then using the vehicle as a collection point, as he cycles off with as many papers as he can manage before returning to re-load his pannier.

"You keep fit doing this," he added. "I reckon I cycle about 90 miles a week."

Oh yes. He has been chased by dogs, but not one is fast enough to catch him.

Lyndon Maisey, the fastest - and longest serving - newsboy in the west.