Changing places — changing faces

There was more in changing my place of work to Rhyl from Holywell than just being able to have a lie-in or go home for lunch.

Obviously I was working with new people and they were ones I could learn a lot from.

I was also meeting new people and old friends when it came to newsgathering.

Having grown up in Rhyl and living at the heart of the seaside town I also knew many people from local businesses and had old schoolfriends.

In fact some of the people I had been at school with were still there in the upper sixth. As were a couple of former girlfriends who were in the lower sixth.

One story I covered was the retirement presentation made to the deputy headmaster, Harold Davies. I accompanied the photographer, Glyn, to get the details and the names of those present.

I had known Harry Davies well during my time at the Grammar School, not just as a good chemistry teacher but also as the man who mainly dealt with misbehaving pupils.

If you were late for school you were sent to see the deputy head; if you were unruly in class or during break you were sent to see the deputy head; if you were caught smoking on school premises you were sent to see the deputy head.

I cannot count the number of times I stood outside Harry’s door, often with two or three other miscreants, waiting to be called in and dealt with.

Every time was the same.

Mr D: “What have you been up to?”

ME: “I’m sorry sir, I missed my alarm.”

or

ME: “I’m sorry sir I forgot to bring my history/maths/biology/RE homework this morning.”

or

ME: “I’m sorry sir, I didn’t realise I had lost my cap while cycling to school.”

Mr D: “Well, I’ll let you off this time but don’t do it again or I will have to deal with you seriously. Now off you go.”

I really liked Harry.

On this day he was presented with a gift by the headmaster, Mr Ron Davies, on behalf of the staff, and a rose bowl on behalf of the pupils by the head boy (a schoolfriend of mine who also sailed with the Rhyl Yacht Club) and the head girl (a former girlfriend who I had not treated very well when we split up).

Back at the office I suggested to Glyn that we should use the picture of the head boy and girl. Mainly because the focus was on Harry and the head boy and girl leaving Ron Davies off to one side.

A petty bit of revenge but I still enjoyed it.

Other friends had left school and were working locally. They included the Parker boys, Louis and Jimmy, who were both working for the family amusement business.

These people were all useful contacts and I would often pick up snippets which proved worthwhile.

My weekly rounds spread a bit further than they had in Holywell, which was really just a small market town in those days.

I would call at the police station and the fire station to get details of any weekend incidents; religious leaders for church news; undertakers to check on upcoming funerals; and the various senior schools.

I enjoyed going back to my old school and talking to my former headmaster on equal terms. More than this, however, was having a chat with my old sports master Berwyn “Bubs” Evans to get details of matches played by the school at county level or higher. He would also pass on details of the girls sports teams from Miss Pat Roberts.

It was just as well I stayed on friendly terms with Bubs because he used to get tickets for the Five Nations Rugby games (no Italy in those days) and quite often earmarked a ticket for me and got me a seat on the local rugby club coach down to Cardiff.

I covered other stories as well, of course, including magistrates and council meetings.

There was an abundance of councils holding meetings which needed coverage.

The county council was out of my league at that point. I did accompany a more senior reporter to meetings of the rural district council and Rhyl urban district council.

I was more often assigned the parish council meetings which normally began at 7.30pm and ended when the more senior councillors were ready to go home to their Horlicks and bed. I am sure we would have been there until midnight if the average age had been 45 instead of 65.

I learned a lot from Brian, Bill, Elwyn and Denise. Regarding the photographic side of newspapers Glyn taught me plenty, not just about setting up a shot but also the technical side of developing and printing.

The only reason I did not give Trixie Vorderman a mention in my learning curve was because I never really worked with her.

She was a friendly person but I didn’t really know how long she had been there or even if she was any more experienced than myself.

She left not long after I moved back to Rhyl. There were rumours about her running off to join the circus but I never really found out where she went.

Years later my path was to cross that of her younger sister Carol but that lies in the future.

Trixie was a bright, bubbly person and I’m sorry I did not get to know her better.

There were more transient colleagues over the years. The most fleeting lasted less than a day but, again, that is a tale still to be told.

Contemplating Hell

by Bertolt Brecht

Contemplating Hell, as I once heard it,

My brother Shelley found it to be a place

Much like the city of London, I,

Who do not live in London, but in Los Angeles,

Find, contemplating Hell, that it

Must be even more like Los Angeles.

Also in Hell,

I do not doubt it, there exist these opulent gardens

With flowers as large as trees, wilting, of course,

Very quickly, if they are not watered with very expensive water.

And fruit markets

With great heaps of fruit, which nonetheless

Possess neither scent nor taste. And endless trains of autos,

Lighter than their own shadows, swifter than

Foolish thoughts, shimmering vehicles, in which

Rosy people, coming from nowhere, go nowhere.

And houses, designed for happiness, standing empty,

Even when inhabited.

Even the houses in Hell are not all ugly.

But concern about being thrown into the street

Consumes the inhabitants of the villas no less

Than the inhabitants of the barracks.

The Builders

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best;

And what seems but idle show

Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,

Time is with materials filled;

Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between;

Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the house, where Gods may dwell,

Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Time,

Broken stairways, where the feet

Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base;

And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye

Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky.

What Kind of Times are these

by Adrienne Rich

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows

near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted

who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled

this is not a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,

its own way of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods

meeting the unmarked strip of light — ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:

I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you

anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these

to have you listen at all, it’s necessary to talk about trees.

The Newspaper

by Penina Moise

To a Venetian coin, the first Gazetta For its generic title became debtor

Whither excursive Fancy tends thy Flight?

Like Eastern Caliph masking thee at night,

By Vezier memory attended still,

Thou pertly pryest in each domicil.

Woe! to the Caitiff then who in his cups,

Unconscious with sublimity he sups,

Shall vow in Bacchanalian truth or fun

Thou art not kindred to the glorious sun!

I fear thee not, clandestine ambulator!

Thou most sophistical and specious traitor

To Truth and Reason, those imperial twins

Whose Empire with thy Martyrdom begins.

What is thy drift in brandishing a flag,

Whose motto is a metamorphosed rag!

As by those motley streaks of white and jet,

I trace that aboriginal Gazette,

The British prototype of ’65

From which all modern journals we derive.

At first confined to faction’s revelations,

Mere politics, or plodding speculations.

Now to a semi-cyclopedia risen

Which the assembled arts, delight to dizen.

Its grand mosaic ground work ever graced

With polished gems of miscellaneous taste.

Philosophy his portico regains

In columns where profoundest science reigns.

While in relief a neighbouring sphere discloses

Clio’s with Nature’s kind exotic roses.

A curious melange of mental food

In fragments thus promiscuously strewed;

Rising Aeronauts,and sinking funds,

Fearful phenomena of stars or suns.

Men in the stocks, uneasy as old Kent,

Others appalled by fluctuating rent.

New ministers to preach, and spirit lamps,

Foreign intelligences from Court and Camps

Don-Pedro and a fresh supply of leeches

A ball that blackens, and a wash that bleaches,

Here, Hymen’s herald to the world declares

When love Triumphant at his shrine appears.

There, tenderness bereaved, its tribute brings

And Hope’s crushed odours on Death’s altar flings.

Advertisements of various commodities,

And anecdotes of Irish whims and oddities.

Bills of mortality, and Board of Health,

A fine green turtle – and a miser’s wealth.

The prices current – a cheap hasty pudding,

Detected fallacies – and falcon-hooding,

Arrivals and departures – births and deaths,

A dreadful Storm – and artificial wreaths,

One fugitive escapes the Cotton pod,

In terror of the Supervisor’s rod.

Another dreading critic castigation,

Flies from the fields of rich imagination.

Thus from discordant interests Genius hurled

The elements that form this typic world.

All watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

By Richard Brautigan

I like to think (and

the sooner the better!)

of a cybernetic meadow

where mammals and

computers

live together in mutually

programming harmony

like pure water

touching clear sky.

I like to think

(right now, please!)

of a cybernetic forest

filled with pines

and electronics

where deer stroll peacefully

past computers

as if they were flowers

with spinning blossoms.

I like to think

(it has to be!)

of a cybernetic ecology

where we are free of our labors

and joined back to nature,

returned to our mammal

brothers and sisters,

and all watched over

by machines of loving grace.

Better watch out if Rupert’s about

When I was working in Australia in the late 70s early 80s there was a joke doing the rounds about Rupert Murdoch – a joke which had an undertone of reality.

“Rupert Murdoch arrived in (insert town or city name) and booked into a hotel. The following morning he sent his secretary out to buy a newspaper. He bought ours – lock, stock and barrel.

The underlying fear was that Murdoch was buying up newspapers all over Australia. He had plans for a central hub for newspaper design with a few changes for local news and for finalised instructions to be sent to printing centres throughout the country.

Not so much a dream as a nightmare. One day that nightmare joke came true when the Murdoch group swallowed up the paper I worked for.

More about that later.

It wasn’t the first time I found myself involved in a newspaper takeover.

One day in early 1969 while I was at Oswestry with Peter Leaney, my boss, he told me I was needed at a meeting in the board room.

I went with him but had a feeling of trepidation. I was under indentures but was afraid they might still be getting rid of me.

Robbie Thomas, the MD, and Tom Roberts were there as was Brian Barratt, the editor of our farming publication.

It was Peter who explained everything. North Wales Newspapers had bought up a North Wales newspaper company called Pugh and Rowlands which produced three newspapers – the Rhyl Journal and Advertiser, Prestatyn Weekly and the Denbighshire Free Press.

Brian Barratt was to be the new editor based at Rhyl, which was why he was at the meeting.

Peter then said: “You’ve worked well for me on the Leader but we wondered if, as you are from Rhyl, whether you would like to transfer to the Journal as a junior reporter.

“As a local boy you might be able to help Brian out and also get some training from a new group of seniors. You would be working with them all the time rather than just one day a week at Mold.”

I was, I admit, taken aback, but at least it had not been the news I was anticipating.

I had a strong loyalty to Peter and had enjoyed our drives over to Oswestry. This was a good move, however, and I would be working almost literally on my doorstep.

I knew the Rhyl Journal building on Russell Road. It was less than 10 minutes walk from my home in Water Street. A big reddish brick building almost opposite St Thomas’ parish church.

It didn’t have the width of the Oswestry building frontage but it ran back a long way because the presses were housed at the rear.

I had no hesitation in accepting the transfer as it was to my advantage all round.

Nobody said it but it was obvious that there was a feeling that the people at the Rhyl office would need time to adjust to working for new bosses.

The Journal was a proper local newspaper. The editorial and advertising staff were at the front of the building and the reporters could literally file last minute copy without having to phone it over.

I could understand that the editorial, advertising and printers would have felt almost like a family group.

The point is I saw NWN in the same way and viewed this as a growth in the family. My role would be as a junior reporter. I wasn’t there as a spy but it might help Brian to have a friendly face around while everyone adjusted to the new situation.

I finished at Holywell on the Friday and my pieces in the Leader that week included a big story on the sports page about local youngsters doing well in a county athletics meeting; and a Holywell pop group Ohm’s Law seeking rehearsal space as they were doing well on the local pop scene.

On the Monday I started work at the Journal and came face to face with my new colleagues.

At least one was almost a familiar face, Bill Prandle who I think was sports editor and might possibly have been chief reporter or deputy editor as well. The face was familiar because I had been at school with his son, David Prandle.

I wasn’t really sure about the hierarchy at the time but I did know I was still at the bottom of the pack.

The others who spring to mind from that first day were Denise Hodgkinson, Elwyn Edwards and Trixie Vorderman. Yes I did say Vorderman and yes she was Carol Vorderman’s sister but Carol was still at primary school at this time.

Then there was Glyn Roberts, the photographer. I have known a lot of press photographers over the decades and some, like Glyn, are imprinted on my mind because of their ability.

Unfortunately Glyn is no longer with us.

At this time the staff were still based at the old works and it was sad to realise that the building would never shake to the thunder of the presses again.

My first stories in my new role included the piece to go with a front page picture showing a car being pulled out of the river by firemen and police officers; and a three-par story about a local lad, Roger Jennings, who had been present at the maiden flight of the Concorde. He was an apprentice at the Rolls Royce works in Bristol.

Roger was another old school friend who had also been a member of the Rhyl Yacht Club.

Contacts come in handy.

We moved quite soon afterwards to more modern offices just down the road.

I had some good years to come working in Rhyl.

NB: if any of my “old” colleagues from Rhyl spot any errors in my memory I hope the will let me know – that’s you Elwyn, and Denise.

The old gods

by Dannie Abse

The gods, old as night, don’t trouble us.

Poor weeping Venus! Her pubic hairs are grey,

and her magic love girdle has lost its spring.

Neptune wonders where he has put his trident.

Mars is gaga – illusory vultures on the wing.

Pluto, exhumed, blinks. My kind of world, he thinks.

Kidnapping and rape, like my Front Page exploits

adroitly brutal – but he looks out of sorts when

Other unmanned gods shake their heads tut tut,

respond boastingly, boringly anecdotal.

Diana has done a bunk, fearing astronauts,

Saturn, Time on his hands, stares at nothing and

nothing stares back. Glum Bacchus talks ad nauseum

of cirrhosis, and small bald Cupid, fiddling

with arrows, can’t recall which side the heart is.

All the old gods have become enfeebled

mere playthings for poets. Few doze or daft,

frolic on Parnassian clover. True sometimes

summer light dies in a room – but only

a bearded profile in a cloud floats over.

Finding my place within the pack

There are hierarchies within journalism and the cub reporter, like the wolf cub, is at the bottom of the pack.

Above this you get a junior reporter, then a senior, then a chief reporter. Sometimes the chief reporter might also be the deputy editor – then you get the head honcho, the editor.

Somewhere in the middle of all this you will find that strange beast – the sub-editor, neither flesh, fish nor fowl.

On a newspaper which is not part of a group the sub-editing might be carried out by the chief reporter or deputy editor in conjunction with the editor.

When newspapers form part of a group the subbing is usually done at a central point.

The editor of each paper would decide on the layout and content of the front page and possibly two or three other important pages; a sports editor might do the same for the sports pages.

For the rest the chief sub and deputies on the top table would work on layouts and put copy instructions with the appropriate story to be worked on by downtable subs.

This was the way North Wales Newspapers operated and the subs were based at Oswestry.

Peter Leaney let me spend some time shadowing the subs on our weekly trips to head office. This was part of my training, and I cannot think of a more effective way of instilling a young reporter with the necessary fear and respect for the gods on the subs table.

At least the fear and respect they thought they were entitled to.

One good thing that came out of these sessions was that the chief sub told me I should get hold of a book called The Simple Subs Book by Leslie Sellers who worked at the Daily Mail.

He wasn’t suggesting I become a sub-editor, I was still on the lower end of the newspaper ladder. He did believe that an understanding of the sub-editor’s craft would make me a better reporter.

He was probably right.

I’ve still got the book, more than 50 years later.

It made interesting reading and certainly gave me an insight into the role of the sub-editor.

At that time, however, I was only interested in being a first-class reporter.

As it happened big changes were ahead of me as 1969 dawned.

I was about to say goodbye to my mentor Peter Leaney (although he still had a major part to play in my life in the 1970s); goodbye to my little fiefdom; and hello to a new role nearer home – much nearer home.

First we take Manhattan

by Leonard Cohen

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom

For trying to change the system from within

I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

I’m guided by a signal in the heavens

I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin

I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

I’d really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you I was one of those

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you’re worried that I

just might win

You know the way to stop me but you don’t have the

discipline

How many nights I prayed for this, now let my work begin

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

I don’t like your fashion business mister

And I don’t like these drugs that keep you thin

I don’t like what happened to my sister

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

I’d really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you I was one of those

And I thank you for the items that you sent me

The monkey and the plywood violin

I practiced every night and now I’m ready

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

Remember me? I used to live for music

Remember me? I brought your groceries in

Well it’s Father’s Day and everybody’s wounded

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.