Category: UK/Europe

Northcliffe House, 1980s

Northcliffe House
Malcom Watts preparing the moulds for Sunday People June 1986 at Nortcliffe House.

Another batch of pictures, sent in by Ken Flemington. Says Ken: “They were taken at Northcliffe House, home of the Daily Mail, where we were printing the Sunday People. They were taken in June 1986 and I am in one of the photos. I will also include one of me using a Polymer platemaking machine which replaced hot metal at Holborn for the short period before closure in 1988.

“I hope the readers enjoy these photos as much as I enjoy the other photos of printers and printing on your excellent site. Sadly this is all I have.” Read the Full Article . . .

Daily Mirror Foundry, 1980s

General view of the foundry with (L-R): Brian Chalker, John Wakefield (chargehand) and Bob Teasel.
General view of the foundry with (L-R): Brian Chalker, John Wakefield (chargehand) and Bob Teasel.

Many thanks to Ken Flemington for getting in touch with the site and sending these photographs in. Some pictures include Ken’s son!

American Machines

Ken says: “The Woods were American machines which were only used as a last resort as they were extremely unreliable and difficult to fix when little things went wrong.” Read the Full Article . . .

Yorkshire Evening Press, 1954

Stonehands
Featured on the photograph, as Ian recalls: Syd Wynn, nearest, Me (Ian Cottom), Sam Doherty (Napper), Wilf Benson, Armstrong, Bob Anley and I think Don Wilkinson (stone sub-editor).

There are six pages of Yorkshire Evening Press photos on Metal Type. Check the “Related Pages” menu to see the rest.

Many thanks to an ex-colleague, Ian Cottom, for sending in a scan of the front cover of “The Newsman” from October 1954. Read the Full Article . . .

Express Gifts

Intertype Monarchs
An overview of the 3 Intertype Monarchs.

Chris Johnson contacted Metal Type in November 2007 saying that he was an engineer working for Express Gifts, part of Findel PLC and had been looking after 3 working Intertype Monarchs for the past 11 years. The company had recently acquired a refurbished Intertype C4 to bring the count of working linecasters up to 4! The machines are used to produce slugs of people’s names to manufacture personalised gift items.

The machines all have a Decitek Floppy Disk Drive operating a Fairchild Teletypesetting unit. Chris very kindly sent in the following photographs. Read the Full Article . . .

Daily Mirror, UK

Daily Mirror
FROM L-R: Bert Heinman, Tom Bailey (who sent in the photograph), Charlie King and Norman Barnes overseeing the last wet dab of the front and back pages of The Mirror on the night of his retirement as “The Printer” in the early 1970s

Tom Bailey sent in this picture of Norman Barnes retiring from his job as “The Printer”, early 1970s.

Tom Bailey said: “To my mind the setting of type was an art form and having spent many hours setting five point type, visually letter-spacing said type for advertisements to be published in newspapers; actually cutting up cigarette papers and bus tickets to use in the spacing. Remember I was not the only one, I had to learn from somebody. Read the Full Article . . .

Yorkshire Evening Press, 125 Years

Linecasters on lorries
Linecasters are put onto lorries in October 1986 outside the Evening Press’s office in Coney Street, York. The Press’s trio of mechanics are in attendance.

There are six pages of Yorkshire Evening Press photos on Metal Type. Check the “Related Pages” menu to see the rest.

In October 2007 the Yorkshire Evening Press, based in York in the UK, celebrated 125 years of production by delving into their archives and publishing a special souvenir supplement. Read the Full Article . . .

Model F Elrod

Elrod Model F

Andy Taylor sent in these pictures of his “brand new” Model F Elrod strip-casting machine. He’s hoping to send in some video of the machine in operation in the near future. He also has a Model K.