Newspaper column - my 50 years in journalism
Half-a-century… It’s a long haul in anyone’s books. But if the 17-year-old me had been told that I would still be knocking out words for a living in 50 years time, I’d have choked on my currant bun.
I single out that delicacy for a reason. As a cub-reporter on a weekly newspaper in the early 1970s, it was my job at elevenses to go next door to Jones’ Bakery and purchase the said buns in order to keep the handful of other reporters fuelled until lunchtime. Which immediately rekindles the memory that one day I went with orders for buns and a pen and notebook in hand because there was news that Mr Jones had been made chairman of the National Federation of Master Bakers. A fact that had me giggling childishly along with several other spotty youths employed at the paper.
Half-a-century of memories…. Everyone has them, of course, but it could be argued that a journalist should have a more varied range than most - for the simple reason that the job requires you to witness and write about interesting things and talk to people with stories to tell.
I was thinking this last weekend as I stood up to give a talk about My 50 Years in Journalism at the new Words in Watchet literary festival. I had prepared some notes, but never looked at a single one because a flood of those memories started flooding back. I began by talking about that first job - in a media landscape which had a lot more in common with Charles Dickens than the digital ether. The wonderful old editor, eloquently reminiscing from behind a vast desk in a darkened room full of cigarette smoke; the loony elderly sub-editors (that paper attracted some amazingly inefficient oddballs); the gargantuan, weird and wonderful printing works manned (it was all men) by colourful characters…
Memories of those early years at the paper took up most of the talk. I didn’t even get around to describing how I walked out one Friday afternoon in order to elope, penniless and suddenly jobless, with a beautiful woman. All this time later I cannot fully recall why we went to Texas.
Anyway, I am assuming I somehow managed not to bore the good folk of Watchet half to death, because the organisers invited me back to speak again next year.
What I can say is that journalism, in all its many guises, has given me a life full of variety and interest - even if it has left my bank account pretty bare. And on that note, if I was forced to make a choice (and to some extent, you do get to choose), I would always much prefer to lead a rich life to the far narrower and, in many ways, constraining concept of simply being rich.
Whichever way you look at it, 50 years is a long time to have been doing one thing in order to make a living - even if, in my case, I have managed to vary things a bit by writing for radio, TV, book publishers and magazines, as well as newspapers.
If someone bossy and abrupt were to ask me to describe, in just a couple of words, what this most curious of jobs entails, then the most simple reply would have to be: “Telling stories.”
My journalist father was asked that same question when he was conscripted into the army towards end of the Second World War and he answered: “Reporter.” He then wondered why he was constantly ordered to carry around luggage for the officers during his first six months in uniform.
“It turned out they thought I said ‘porter’,” recalled my dad, who was an incredibly mild-mannered person, which is why he never questioned his suitcase-carrying work.
It happened to be a good move. Someone discovered he was exceptionally good with a rifle, after which he was trained as a sniper. Had that discovery been made earlier, he would almost certainly have been sent off to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. As it was, he just missed that late draft at the end of WW2 and was very glad of it because, although he loved the physical challenge faced by the sniper elite, he really didn’t want to use the skill to end other people’s lives.
And for my part I am mightily pleased he endured the six month luggage-carrying delay because, had he gone to fight, he might not have come back. And then my very good life would not have come about.
I was thinking about my father recently after the fact dawned on me this was my 50th year in journalism. When he reached my age, I recall Dad saying: “There’s been some mistake. I can’t possibly be this ancient. I haven’t had enough time to prepare myself to be this old.”
I now know what he meant. And it is why I’d like to emulate my good friend Tony James, who you may have seen recently being featured on both BBC and ITV news as Britain’s oldest working journalist. Tony is still banging away at the keyboard at the age of 88, which means someone of my age could be regarded as a mere whipper-snapper. If I am fortunate enough to follow in his footsteps, I’ve still got over 20 years to go.
Tony James, still working as a journalist at 88
