For many readers of the news, paper remains king — and the newspaper starts their day.

As the newspaper heads from printing press to breakfast table, the newspaper carrier represents the final stage in circulation.

Honouring that tradition is International Newspaper Carrier Day, which is observed today.

This date, put aside under the auspices of Newspaper Association of America, is also celebrated by The Royal Gazette as a salute to the one-dozen current staff delivering papers — and the legions of veterans, some of whom supplemented their pocket money as youngsters with their takings.

Present day carrier Robert Thomas couldn’t recall his start in the industry without laughing: as a lay minister, he had offered to help a woman struggling to make ends meet with her paper route.

“She told me it started at five o’clock in the morning; I told her I couldn’t make it,” Mr Thomas said — although the pricking of his conscience had him up at 4.30am, to track down the woman carrier on her route.

That was in 1996, and Mr Thomas found himself sticking with it. In 1997, when the woman left Bermuda, he took the job off her.

“I needed a discipline — I was in the ministry, building up myself and getting strong in the Lord, and this was my start, my discipline,” he said.

“If a man doesn’t work, he can’t eat. And when it came to Christmas, a lot of people treated you very nice at the end of the year. I love serving people; that’s my joy from people.”

Many carriers collected their loads from the newspaper headquarters shortly after the paper went to print, in the small hours of the morning.

Carriers in outlier districts, like Mr Thomas, get the papers dropped off at their homes to be delivered. On days when the RG had gone late to the presses, he’d find himself running deliveries past the 7am cut-off. This brought about encounters with dogs.

Again, Mr Thomas laughed, remembering a close call with a car as a German Shepherd, more aggressive than the usual dog, chased him away as he came in for a delivery.

“I was super vexed — and the woman told me ‘It’s my daddy’s dog’,” he said.

Not many people are up and about at the regular delivery hour, but the job affords some chances for lasting relationships, he said: “Those that see me, I get to meet them. It’s a few of them, but it’s good.”

As a resident of Crawl in Hamilton Parish, Mr Thomas covers routes 32, 33 and 51 — roughly from the Aquarium to Leamington Caves.

There are roughly 50 routes around Bermuda, their numbers decided partly by postal districts but mainly by the numbers of subscribers in a given area.

Presently, service is patchy for the East End of the Island, according to The Royal Gazette’s circulation manager, Craig Tyrrell.

“We want to deliver to every house on the Island, but we need people who want to deliver,” Mr Tyrrell said.

Admittedly, not everyone has the stamina for a job that starts before the break of dawn. However, if this morning’s news was delivered to you, raise a cup of coffee to your newspaper carrier: today is their day.