Dean Nayes sent in this amusing story about a very ingenious Linotype operator.
DURING my travels across the United States I came across a very ingenious Linotype operator.
Category: Location
The Linotype Mechanic
Keith Prentice tells us about his career installing and repairing Lionotype and Intertypes around New Zealand.
IN 1948 I was indentured as a Linotype mechanic apprentice at The Otago Daily Times in Dunedin, New Zealand and trained on Model 8 & 14 Linotypes as well as Intertype C3 , C4, and G4-4sm machines. I also operated an Elrod strip caster.
Fortress Wapping
Award-winning journalist John Pilger tells the real story of Rupert Murdoch’s introduction of new technology in the 1980s.
The following piece is taken from John Pilger’s book “Hidden Agendas” which is available for viewing, downloading or purchase from his website http://www.johnpilger.com/
New Zealand Novice
Newspaper Compositor Graeme How of the Wairoa Star, Wairoa, New Zealand takes us back to his first day on a Linotype. Check out Graeme’s other Wairoa Star stories in the “Related Pages” menu.
IT WAS late 1969. After a year of getting used to the layout of the Californian hand set type cases, I was sat down in front of one of our linotypes.
Advance Memories
Albert W Perez sent in this story about some of the characters who worked at the Daily Advance in Dover, New Jersey.
In MARCH, 1973, I started my apprenticeship with The Daily Advance in Dover, New Jersey. My father, 3 uncles and 2 aunts had worked in the trade, so for me, it was a natural.
How we did things at the Sunday Telegraph
George Clark takes us back to London’s Fleet Street, from the 1960s onwards.
FIRSTLY, there is something which I think I should explain. I have been as guilty of this as much as anyone else. In referring to a “Ship” I have failed to precede the word with an apostrophe. It is in fact an abbreviation of “Companionship”. When I entered Print in the 1930s printers had their own vocabulary, a layman would have been mystified to hear Compositors conversing in those days. A body of Compositors were known as a Companionship.
Sunday Telegraph Grass Ship
George Clark tells us about his 22 years on the Sunday Telegraph and takes issue with a couple of points made in Malcolm Gregory’s “Fleet Street Piecework” story.
MALCOLM GREGORY paints a very black picture of the S.T. Grass Ship, as one who served on this Ship from April 1964 retiring as a “Regular” on 29th March 1986 I feel I should give a clearer picture.
Fleet Street Piecework
Malcolm Gregory describes his time working on the Daily Telegraph in London’s Fleet Street from the early 70s to the closure in 1987.
I WAS working on an Intertype at the Walthamstow Guardian when I managed to get a ‘Grass’ on the Sunday Telegraph (this meant working the Saturday as a casual operator) through a fellow operator who put in a word, knowhatimean?
Hot Metal in Australia
Arthur Johnson tells us about his career and the work he is still doing with Hot Metal in Gulgong, NSW, Australia.
I STARTED my apprenticeship in 1953 at Winn & Co in Sydney Australia a medium sized shop with 2 Linotypes a Model 8 electric pot and a !4 with a gas pot.
Glossary of Printing Trade Terms
George Clark sent in this very interesting list of old printing trade terms.
A Chapel.-A meeting of compositors is called a chapel, and the members of the chapel form a companionship (shortened to ‘ship) pledged to watch over the interests of the London Society of Compositors (L.S.C.) and its members in the chapel.