Mal's Memories 6

DO YOU remember your first job?


I started as a junior reporter on the former Barry Herald when I was 17. There were no computers in those days, but there were plenty of real characters for which newspaper offices are famous.


The one who sticks in my mind most was Fred the machine minder. When things went wrong on press day Fred was not averse with letting fly with a spanner or whatever else was close to hand. And there was one memorable day when a spanner flew across the press room, smashed a window and landed on the pavement outside, almost giving a passing pedestrian a heart attack.


The owner/editor was one Basil Hicks and he believed in working hard and playing hard. If we had to work late, as often we did on the night before press day, he would order up fish and chips and sometimes a generous supply of beer to keep us going.


The paper got into financial difficulties and eventually it merged with the Barry and District News. The only problem was that none of the Herald staff were taken over with the paper. I had the sack on my 19th birthday.


It was then that I switched towns from Barry to the Penarth Times where I was to stay for the next 37 years, more than 25 as editor, until I retired from full-time work five years ago.


Of course, the Penarth Times and Barry and District News are now sister papers, and although I never got to work on the News following that takeover when I was a teenager, I did become its editor almost 40 years later. It’s a funny old world!