FRIDAY, June 11, 1971 began like any other – this skinny 15 year old cycled off to secondary
modern school in Orpington and returned home for lunch as normal.
But life changed when Mum told me my Dad had rung saying there was a job for me at the Mirror,
and how soon could I leave school?
That afternoon, in fact.
After finishing my remaining lessons – I remember cookery was my very last class – I said
goodbye to my schoolmates and cycled home for the last time.
Monday morning saw Dad and I at Media Specialist Bureau in High Holborn – they handled all
clerical vacancies – where we expected formalities would take place before I began my working life
in Jim Stanley’s Circulation Sales accounts department.
Except that we were told that the position had been taken!
“Impossible,” said Dad, “I was promised by Jim that job was ours.”
It turns out that someone else had earmarked “my” vacancy for their son or nephew, but they
reckoned without the gentleman’s agreement – that was all it involved in those days.
Dad had worked at the Mirror since the 1950s. We met Jim that afternoon, and things were sorted
out – no interview was necessary. “If you’re Fred’s boy, that’s good enough for me.” And I was in.
The following Monday, June 21, I went through minimal red tape with personnel manager Bill
Smith. My pay rate for a NATSOPA junior grade ‘A’ clerk was to be £13.80 a week, which seemed
like a fortune at the time.
Better still, from day one I was offered three hours overtime every night, so had the opportunity to
virtually double my salary.
Sales accounts was the perfect starter to working life; a fantastic range of characters, old and
young, were all so kind to a wet-behind-the-ears school leaver.
All life was there, all in one office on the first floor of Orbit House, in New Fetter Lane.
The work wasn’t hard, I don’t think anyone worked that hard in those days, and we all arranged
things so that as soon as the management left the building about halfway through our overtime
period, we put out the lights behind us five minutes later.
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Apart from the diverse characters and endless banter, one of the things I remember most was
hopping on the 171 bus from Fleet Street to the Aldwych a couple of times a day to ferry The
People publishing books to and from Dryden Street, Long Acre – and claiming cab fares for it.
The original Covent Garden Market was an incredibly busy, bustling area at that time, and such a
vibrant environment to be walking through as a youngster from the suburbs.
One day I remember seeing some commotion around a turquoise Rolls Royce parked close to the
Royal Opera House. As I passed by I saw Alfred Hitchcock sitting in the back, yes THAT bloke I
had seen on the telly every Friday night for years.
That year it was the turn of IPC Newspapers to organise the annual Old Ben charity evening, and I
was given the job of delivering the tickets to the Prime Minister and members of the Commons and
House of Lords.
Imagine, me, a green-as-grass 15 year old, knocking on the big black door of No 10 Downing
Street.
They’re never going to believe this at home.
It all seemed surreal, yet because so much of my life had changed in such a short space of time, it
felt almost normal, too. I had arrived!
All fantastic experience, and those first few months left a bigger impression on me than the
remaining 47 years I spent in the newspaper industry.
I did my best to dodge real responsibility most of my working life on the editorial of The Sporting
Life and later Racing Post, and managed to survive in a specialist field without any real knowledge
or passion for the principal subject so I must have been doing something right.
The lessons learned in those formative years as a junior though, taught me that whatever else, you
did your best and always owned up when you f***ed up, which fortunately was not that often in my
case.
Despite what they always say about your school years, my best ones began in June ’71.
The writer eventually took responsibility for the final sign-off of all content in Racing Post,
Weekender and Racing and Football Outlook newspapers, and had a parallel career as a
successful greyhound racing photographer.
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