By Judith Phillips, Reporter
WHEN I first joined the Weekly News as a young, and very wet behind the ears trainee journalist, newspaper production was still stuck in the 19th century. In the early 1960s, the Weekly News was still a family owned firm, and part of RE Jones Printers with a printing works on the Quay at Conwy and the head office in nearby Castle Street above a chemist's shop.
The entrance to the Castle Street office was quite Dickensian with a high reception desk behind which sat a young lady with a ledger and a pen (not a quill) but in those days the ballpoint was still in its infancy, so she held a fountain pen which was refilled from an ink bottle kept below the counter.
Upstairs were offices for the advertising and editorial staff, and we trainee reporters ( there were three of us) sat around a large, battered wooden table, with the chief reporter Gwilym Morgan, a stickler for detail, but avuncular and cheery, at its head. The company didn't supply reporters with typewriters, so until you could afford to buy your own - which wasn't easy on £3 a week - we wrote our copy in long hand, a laborious and often frustrating process when it came back from Mr Morgan with red pen strokes through grammatical and spelling errors and instructions to rewrite it.
Wednesday's were the pressure day of the week. With the huge hot presses ready to roll at the printing works 100 yards away, we trainees were pressed into service scurrying backwards and forwards clutching wads of "copy" paper carrying stories which we delivered to the editor and deputy editor who had taken up temporary residence in a cubbyhole next to the print room.
Each line of copy was set word by word by hand into each page by skilled specialists, and even with their dexterity it was a lengthy process. Often it was well after 10pm before we could say that week's edition of the Weekly News had been put safely "to bed" and it was then, that senior staff members adjourned to the bar of the Castle Hotel for a relaxing pint, while we humble juniors caught a bus back home to cocoa and bed.
In contrast I now write my copy on a keyboard linked to a computer which magically checks my spelling. Then at the press of a button the story is miraculously transferred to the news editor, who checks it through, makes corrections or alterations as necessary, then forwards it onto our team of sub-editors who place it on a page and give it a bright, snappy headline, which hopefully will catch the eye of you, our readers.
What used to take hours, now takes minutes, but I can't help feeling a little nostalgic for the sights, sounds, and smells of the printing works. The hustle and bustle, the deafening noise of the huge presses, and the smell of hot ink on paper are vivid in my memory.
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davidvogt wrote...
Your article is very informative and helped me further.
Thanks, David
Posted by: davidvogt | February 3, 2007 10:24 PM