Yesterday’s Technology . . . Today!
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/
Newspaper Compositor Graeme How of the Wairoa Star, Wairoa, New Zealand takes us back to his first day on a Linotype.
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.My big moment had arrived; I was actually going to operate one of the ‘eight wonders of the world.’ My only association with the linotypes up to this moment was cleaning the spacebands, plungers and plunger wells. “Follow the copy, even if it flies out the window”, Jack said, (who had been operating linotypes since before the Second World War).
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Roy Daniels tells us about his printing career in Canada from the age of 15.
EMIGRATING to Canada in May of 1949 on the Cunard Ship Acquitania at the age of 12 was a harrowing experience.
A new poem written and sent in by Mike Wilson of Bridlington in the UK.
In far-off days,
when Macintosh deterred the rain,
and hot metal reigned supreme,
there dwelt abroad,
in solitary splendour or ranked and rowed:
the linecaster.