MR HACK No. 106

It is funny ... you come to the pc to prepare an update and you are wondering just what to put up to entertain, annoy or puzzle whoever might come along to have a look ... Such was the case a couple of days ago when 'ping' Outlook Express informed me that a new message had arrived and the sender was telling me how he enjoyed the 'sterling work' being done on copyboys and that he 'may get around to contributing but am a bit shy ...'. I have to tell him his moment has arrived because it was Don McAleer and he sent me a great picture (above) and he wrote:"I came across this pic recently and it may be of interest to some of your readers. A caption attached reminds me of Freddie Gamble telling me that anyone who produces a picture without a caption and a date deserves to be shot. I think he was right!" He was right ... I am holding publication of the caption to let our readers guess the names of the people they can see and the year it was taken ...

Comments

[Graham]

NUJ general secretary said: "The end of one of the country’s most famous morning papers is a national tragedy. This paper was a part of my daily life when I grew up in the city and the people of Liverpool will lose out enormously."

[A.McQ.]

Well if the people don't buy the Liverpool Daily Post - or The Belfast Telegraph or any other paper for that matter - that's because they don't want to. Therefore it is only the paper which is losing out. Or am I being simple? I long ago deserted my local evening paper because it was crap. It went over to overnight printing a couple of years back and is even worse now. It often misses the night football matches and in summer when Essex are playing day/night floodlit games doesn't carry a report until 48 hours later. Provincial dailies are quite clearly in a very bad place and it seems managements have no idea how to recover the popularity they once had. Sacking a few dunderheads in suits and using the savings on their pay and bonuses would be a start with the money used to hire more reporters to improve news and sports coverage. My local weekly, from the same stable, had until this week its own editor and ONE - that's right ONE - reporter and changed into a roundup of the rubbish that was in the so-called evening with the odd new story and re-written PR dross.

[JC]

A.McQ. has hit the nail on the head ... if you don't give the public what they want (in whatever format you choose to print it), then don't expect your sales to blossom. I notice that the free BT's around Bangor go at a rapid rate, so as I suggested ages back maybe they should go the 'free sheet' path (with presumably boosted advertising) and see how that goes ... it may even have been considered by the top brass.

[Derek Black]

Do you think people would value what they don't pay for?

Stick with your opening thought and A.McQ

[Chairman]

That vice girl's confessions in the Belfast Telegraph...... She doesn't name any names...does she?

[Graham]

An analysis of "Daily Express" headlines for the past three months - August 28-November 25 shows the following:

New cures: 25%
Europe 14%
House prices 11%
Pensions 11%
Weather 9%
Energy 5%
Other 25%

[Source - J O'Leary, Media Standards Trust intern]

[Graham]

Those are front-page headlines, by the way. Some newspaper, the Express, these days. I reckon some of the "New Cures" splashes don't stand too much scrutiny. Daily Mail also fond of new cures, but nowhere like 25% - one day in four

[Graham (not anonymised)]

Guardian Media quotes Lord Leveson as saying that witnesses at his inquiry into the Press could be anonymised. That's a new word to me. Now, when I google it, I see there's discussion about whether there's such a word at all. Maybe in North America?

[RedRick]

Can't believe The Liverpool Daily Post is becoming a weekly!!!
In 1973, during six weeks work experience with the Press Association in Fleet St, I was sent to cover an anti Vietnam protest outside the American Embassy by left wing Labour MPs. I took a picture of such notables and then, personal heroes, as Tony Benn, Michael Foot and Eric Heffer forming a V for Vietnam on the steps of the Embassy. Among other publications, my picture was used on the front page of The Liverpool Daily Post - I have never to this day forgotten the thrill and the pride I experienced!!!
Then, when I worked on the Evening Leader in Wrexham for seven years, the Daily Post (North Wales edition) was a paper I looked up to especially for sports pictures and reports. It's so sad to hear of this once great publication's decline, it will be missed greatly.

[JC]

Very funny Matt cartoon on the front page of today's Daily Telegraph ... A penguin in the witness box at the Leveson Inquiry:"Courting, mating, laying eggs. Attenborough is always there with a camera crew".

[Chris Ryder]

I find there is increasingly detailed and explicit reporting of court cases with a sexual content in the local and Dublin papers. I don't want to be overly prudish but I think we should be spared the details. This practice is pure titillation which neither explains or informs. And as circulations continue to collapse it certainly does not recruit new readers.

[Cal McCrystal]

But, Chris, it’s all part of the insubstantial world we live in and are encouraged to enjoy. It’s not entirely new (The Daily Telegraph was famous/ notorious back in the 50s and 60s for presenting (on inside pages, of course) all and sultry to all and sundry. It did so by concentrating on court cases where sexual excess predominated. I’m pretty sure the editor of those pages was Myles na Copulating, who may well have relocated to his native Dublin. Aside from that, look around you: girl toddlers dressed like tarts, bums and tits in multitudinous array everywhere, the former surgically depleted and the latter surgically enhanced. Bad taste, bad form and bad manners are ubiquitous, as common in politics as in other professions. When you and I were school kids, foul language was usually camouflaged with words like “flippin’”, “frig”, “feck”. Today there is mild controversy over the unrestrained use of the “f-word’ - again everywhere. I recall, as a pre-teenager, a popular army song which, in censored form, went: “All soldiers like the leg of a duck ...”. It was many years later that someone educated me to “All soldiers like a bit of a (rhymes with ‘duck’).” I could go on ... but shall avoid doing so lest I be characterised (again) as a grumpy old man.

[JC]

YOU'RE KNICKED:
THIEF HAD 860
ITEMS OF LINGERIE

That was the headline on an enjoyable court case report in the paper this morning ...
Police discovered 860 items of women's underclothing at the home of a prolific thief, who was wearing a pair of stolen knickers when he was arrested. He will be sentenced later.

[A.McQ.]

Not in Ballyholme or Helens Bay one hopes...

[Graham]

Oh, what paper was that, JC? has it been anonymised?

[Chris Ryder]

Quite right Cal. But we had more decent standards here. All coarsened now. I am a grumpy old man.

[JC]

Apologies ... I thought everyone recognised the paper from Cal's comment ... it was, of course, the Daily Telegraph.

[Chairman]

In these yooff oriented times anyone over 50 has become anonymised. If it wasn't for scam phone calls some of us would have no social life at all. Earlier this week my computer turned surly on me and refused to let me on the internet. Just before the repair man arrived, had a phone call from that oriental lady who is forever insisting she can repair computers from a great distance. You know, the one who wants all your details and access to your computer to steal from you and use your identity to steal from others. The genuine repair man tells me they get the details of pensioners and call them up hoping they are ga ga enough to believe them. One called his aunt one day and said her computer was sending out viruses to other computers and unless she let them fix it, she'd be fined enormous sums of money. She replied that she did not have a computer. You do, they insisted. She was on their list. No I don't, she said. I happen to be blind. The persistant con man then came up with the classic line "Maybe there is one in the house and you just can't see it." It is completely insane but they must succeed often enough to make it worth their while.

[Graham]

Sorry to be so dim, JC (The thought never entered my head...- JC)

[A.McQ.]

I see a couple of the Sunday papers started to bite back today at some of the crap being spewed at the Leveson Inquiry. As Revel Barker, editor of Gentlemen Ranters, said on Friday: "It wasn't our generation who did all this bad stuff - it was the "bright young things" they replaced us with. I was at a trial last week when a smartass lawyer tried to wind me up by asking if I could tell him what messages were on his voicemail. I replied simply: "There's one on there which says there are an awful lot more of you parasitic bewigged buffoons in jail than there are reporters." He didn't come near me again after that.

[Graham]

Well, it entered mine, that that was what you assumed, JC. (JC and Blogmaster are one and the same person, for those who don't realise)

[Graham]

The Leveson Inquiry is (quite rightly) hearing a lot of bad stuff about the misbehaviour of some of the press. But I wonder if it will be examining the positive side as well? After all, the inquiry's remit is to look at the "ethics, culture etc" of the press.

What about the wrong-doers brought to justice by the press, the uncovering of scams,consumer problems solved, the injustices in society - and sometimes in the courts - spotlighted and put right?

If the ethics that drive this sort of journalism are not explored by the Inquiry an overall distorted picture will emerge.

Here's hoping.

[.A.McQ.]

Mr President: I think it is time you donned your pedant's hat again. Evidence is evidence as far as I am concerned meaning it has to be factual and you need proof. Some of the stuff at Leveson is bile dressed up as evidence. True, some of the behaviour of the paps, has been obscene. But I think you - or Cal - should put on the pedant's hat and give us a definition of EVIDENCE. I'll wager we're not far apart. And I'll wager, too, that the reason a lot of these so-called personalities are chuntering is because the stories about them were not controlled or leaked by their PRs. If there was a PR involvement - or even a fee involved "for their true/heartache/gallant/generous/wonderful" story - I don't think there'd be so much whingeing. And what about the gossip they whispered into journalists' ears about their friends and/or rivals? The Dowlers and McCanns are a separate issue in my book but the so-called personalities deserve all the brown stuff that's poured over 'em. And if Max Moseley wants stricter controls on the Press then he should buy his own paper instead of splashing his money on orgies and we'll see how well that sells with him in command. Rant over.

[Chairman]

I think it might be of interest to fellow bloggers if I explained how JC got his title. I gave it to him. President and chairman were already taken and since he was going to be doing all the brainwork and paying the annual internet fees, I felt he should have a symbol of office that didn't involve Latin mottos or coat of arms. I first thought of The Blogman but it smacked of tights, cloaks and Blogmobiles. And Blogfield conjoured up an image of a sinister fat man stroking a white Persian cat. So I stuck him with Blogmaster. And despite JC's initial reservations that it made him sound like the Workhouse superintendant in "Oliver Twist", accepted my suggestion. After all, we couldn't give him a cuddly name. Wouldn't be dignified.

[Blogmaster]

YESTERDAY'S NEWS NOW TODAY ...
We read that 65 million newspaper articles about significant events over the last 300 years are to be put online by the British Library. Apparently it is free to search but you have to pay for longer access. It seems local papers as well as the nationals appear. A link to the library is http://www.bl.uk/

[Graham]

Yesterday's news today?
Just read the "Belfast Telegraph"

[Cal McCrystal]

As the xmas & panto season looms inexorably, I'd like all Copyboys to pay home to a comedian whose thinkingand humour is Divine and whose famous tickling-stick punctures inflated egos & superstitious piety. Ahhmen!

ALMIGHTY DODD

I can confirm that I, Ken Dodd,
Am a true replica of God;
To argue not would be a fraud
And irksome for the Virgin Maud.

Be you Catholic, Jew or Prod,
Living locally or abroad,
With loved ones or on your todd,
Believe me, I’ve said nothing odd.

Dine on haddock, carp or cod,
(Filetted fish is easily gnawed),
Lug a briefcase or hoist a hod,
Nothing I say can be outlawed.

I once with our Creator jawed
On an Oxford college quad;
He blessed me with a tickling rod
And kissed the ground whereon I trod.

So be you Rocker, be you Mod,
Be you smart-ass or silly sod,
You must have faith in me, Ken Dodd,
Being a duplicate of God.

Cal McCrystal Nov 27, 2011

[Cal McCrystal]

I meant to say above "pay homage" (not "pay home")

[Chris Ryder]

Wonderful, Cal.

[Graham]

PEDANT ALERT!

North Down Borough Council announces that there will be no bin collections tomorrow. And then, IN HEAVY TYPE, adds that "there will be no alternative collection day"

I thought at first that this meant bins would have stank for up to a month before the next collection came round in a fortnight's time - which is very bad.

Now I realise that it's worse than that. "Not alternative collection day" must surely mean that they'll never be collected at all.

[Graham]

Alastair Campbell tells the Leveson inquiry that "journalists get together and decide the line" Oh, and Govt press officers would never do that? Huh? Come on,Alastair

[Derek Black]

Whoopee - a subbing hub closed and papers reverting to in-house subbing. See Press Gazette < http://bit.ly/rK7o7B>

[Cal McCrystal]

If Copyboys wish to be reminded of how incredibly hard journalists once worked - and for incredibly long hours - to the point of daily exhaustion, they should dip into Claire Tomalin's terrific new biography of Charles Dickens who, as you know was a journo in his early 20s. How his constitution survived the multiple assignments, including verbatim reports of Parliament is a puzzle. I know we all worked pretty hard constantly in our own "old days", but this book gives a new meaning to "working like the Dickens." One massive advantage young Charles had over many modern reporters is that he had fast and reliable shorthand, which he taught himself to write.

[Graham]

"Belfast Telegraph" at it again. Splash lead story HEADLINE online: "NORTHERN IRELAND GRINDS TO A HALT" In six words this manages to take an overworn, battered and bedraggled cliche out of the dustbin, and is also inaccurate.

Of course, yes, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 public service workers were on strike and health, education and transport services were disrupted.

But there were thousands of cars on the roads, parking in Belfast was reported to be chaotic,the traffic wardens were busy at work, the electricity stayed on, most businesses stayed open, broadcasting continued as usual on radio and television.

Hardly "grinding to a halt" - which must be very noisy. Somebody said it was the biggest strike in a generation. They must be younger than 34 - The strike which brought down the Brian Faulkner/Gerry Fitt Government at Stormont in 1974 - well, that was more like "grinding to a halt" if you want to be cliche-ridden, don't you think?

"200,000 strike - health, education, transport disrupted" might have been wiser.

[Chris Ryder]

Having been out and about today, can say Graham is correct. Indeed traffic was pretty fast moving compared with 'normal' working days. Story probably written overnight before any accurate estimate could be made of the actual effect of the strike.

[Chairman]

Hyperbole headlines is not a recent virus afflicting the Belfast Telegraph. Some years (possibly decades) ago, a strike by university lecturers was treated to a headline warning of the 'Chaos' this was expected to cause. I recall poking a little mild fun at this in an old column, suggesting that it was not a bus or rail strike or a hospital strike. The world would not tremble at the possibility of being deprived of university lecturers for a week or two. But to be fair to the sub, he was merely following the hyperbole in the over-excited prose in a reporter's copy. Got a scolding letter from someone at Queen's for not taking their plight seriously. It is always entertaining to see the haves masquerading as have-nots on the picket line. As we've seen today. But all of us have our hyperbole moments. Even my old friend the late Des McMullan. Who can forget the front page splash "POPE FLIES OVER BELFAST."

[Cal McCrystal]

Another scolding letter: "hyperbole" is a noun. "hyperbolic" is an adjective - as my old friend Des McMullan would have advised.

[peter mcmullan]

I am sure our esteemed Chairman is correct but I have always recalled that particular head with the words 'flies' and 'over' transposed to read "POPE OVER FLIES BELFAST". No doubt chapter, verse and actual date will be quoted back to me to underline the undoubted gaps in my memory. I will be in Belfast - actually staying with bro-in-law Walter at Inch - December 15-January 3 - if any social activities are
planned for long ago scribes and snappers.

[Derek Black]

Always associated the Pope over Belfast story with the Irish News not the BT - memory is fickle.

This strike is futile and is hitting children, hospital patients and public transport users most of all. The Government can live with it. As least our strike back then hit the milch cow where it hurt in the advertising revenue.

Agree that the reporting has been pretty sensational. Somehow the sight of primary school headmasters on picket lines lacks the gravitas of the winter of discontent. They lack the bitterness of the miners.

We all have to man up and live with this one even though it is not our fault. The realities will not go away because of a public sector symbolic strike. And they will be with us for many years, I fear.

[Chairman]

Sorry Cal. I was dancing around the word 'hyperbolics'. It seemed rude and I wasn't certain it didn't have a K. If I could spell I'd get through the daily crosswords much faster. However I've learned something new today. I've discovered that even at my age I can still learn one new thing a day. It almost makes up for the two or three things I forget every day.

[Blogmaster]

There is a new ingredient in the 'sidebar' (if I may use that expression). It is called NUJ History and it will have information and stories to appeal to all (even those who grew to loathe the NUJ and resigned)... it takes all sorts to make a popular blog so when something appears, do go in and read and comment if that is what you might feel like doing ....

[RedRick]

Attn: Peter McMullan. Might be a bit too soon for you Peter if you are only arriving on the 15th but former Tele photgraphers and darkroom staff are meeting up for Christmas lunch in the Dirty Duck, Holywood, December 15 at 1pm. Among those atending will be Roy Smyth, Bobby Ingram, Charlie Cockcroft, Fred Hoare, Brian McMullan, Rick Hewitt, Ian Trevithick,Paddy McBride,Danny Thompson and Danny Kerr. Even if you can't make lunch maybe you could call in. I'm sure your old colleagues would love to see you. Bobby Ingram is organising the lunch - if you want to book in for lunch, his phone number is 02892682057
(I hope I get sent pix if I don't make it to
take my own - Blogmaster)

[Mitchell Smyth]

A 50th anniversary coming up. On Dec. 20 1961 Robert McGladdery was the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland (well, that is if you ignore paramilitary ``executions.'')

[Cal McCrystal]

I remember it well, Mitch, because it was my birthday.

[peter mcmullan]

I have happy memories of the Dirty Duck from previous visits but will have to miss out this time as we do not get to Belfast until mid-afternoon on the 15th. Best regards to all planning to be present, in particular old fishing companion and skilled snapper Roy Smyth. So many of those preparing to attend can hark back to the era of Big Herbie and Wee Harry - an unlikely duo if ever there was one. And now I gather from earlier posts that the staff photographer is going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon. What a shame, both from the point-of-view of those lucky enough to make a living portraying history in the making and the papers (and readers) they served so well. Merry Christmas one and all.

[A.McQ.]

RedRick: That is some gathering of photographic talent. All good photographers need a bit of luck now and again and Freddie Hoare, on occasion, just seemed to be in the right position at the right time and on one famous occasion was shivering so much he inadvertently hit the shutter button. The result - an award-winning picture enhanced, of course, by my golden words. Hope those superb artistes in light and shade have a magnificent day. Freddie and I got ourselves into a scrape or several while covering The Troubles but we always ended up with a good show in the paper. We worked as a team which was common in those days. Nowadays a reporter is lucky to even see a cameraperson on a job - and vice versa - or to even know with whom he or she is supposed to be working! I worked with some brilliant photographers and FH was right up there with the best of 'em.

[Chairman]

Curious to learn that Robert McGladdery was executed on Cal's birthday. Most of us just get a cake.

[Cal McCrystal]

I recommend the current British Journalism Review on Leveson and other pieces. You can read the whole thing online. Excellent stuff. Just Google british journalism review.

[Mitchell Smyth]

Speaking of Robert McGladdery . . . I'm reading The Blue Tango, a novel based on the Patricia Curran murder, and there's a reference (page 74) to Iain Hay Gordon being told how her father, Judge Curran, pronounced ``the death sentence on the murderer McGladdery from Newry.'' A glaring anachronism: this was nine years before Pearl Gamble was killed. While checking these dates I came on an article by one John Linklater that says ``the balance of the evidence points forceably to the mother'' (Doris Curran) as the killer. I never knew that, though we all knew, even at the time (and certainly after Duncan Webb's stories in The People) that there was a monstrous miscarriage of justice, one of the worst in the UK.

[Graham]

Just testing - have been unable to blog successfully for last two days, contributions disappear

[Smyth]

My friend Michael Cooke, now editor of the Toronto STar, was editor-in-chief of the Chicago Sun-Times when he came up with this, possibly unique, front page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1VlE99ysxY&feature=share

What do you think?
-

[Graham]

Posted the above after five attempts over three days!

[Michael]

Anyone remember the Belfast characters of the 1950s and 1960s?

Top of the poll was Corky, a one-legged lady who reputedly had been a specialist night worker in her younger days. She would lurch around the city centre on her artificial leg (hence the Corky) and woe betide anyone who glanced in her direction. He/she would be blasted with a fearsome stream of abuse.

Annie Quinn held the police court record with 332 convictions by the mid-sixties. I remember writing a page one top for her 300th sentence.

Thomas McAuley was a WW2 veteran who would come to attention and salute the magistrate from the dock. He recognised me from the press box and would salute me in the street as well.

Inevitably the years and booze caught up with him and one winter's morning he appeared on the strong arm of big Alec Haire, the custody sergeant.

"What's wrong Tom?" asked John Long, the kindest of magistrates to a genuine case of hardship.

"Oh I'm not well your honour, I want to go up to the big hotel". "That's too bad Tom, how long would ye like to go for?" "It's cold out there your honour, maybe I could have two months please?"

"Surely ye can Tom, and I hope you feel better soon". Poor Tom died shortly afterwards.

[sm]

I remember Alec Haire well. And his side-kick was a constable - Norman something. Can't remember his surname. Alec was attacked in the dock one morning by Silver McKee who lashed out at him. It took both him and Norman quite a few minutes to subdue him.

[Chris Ryder]

I recall there was a double amputee who traversed Cornmarket on a piece of wood with four furniture castors on it. And there was of course the man who played the saw at a pitch outside the old Water Office now M&S. I recall a very young Van Morrison passing one afternoon after playing at a Plaza lunchtime session throwing some coins to him.

[A.McQ.]

Didn't Annie have a husband who had around the same number of convictions as her? I remember one morning in the old Custody Court with the pair of them in the dock. They had both been released from jail the previous day and were about to be sent back. Alec Haire, the RM and Wee Tommy Lowe greeted them like old friends. The man who played the saw also entertained customers outside the old GPO in Royal Avenue and played outside Mooneys in Cornmarket to name but two of his other venues.

[Graham McKenzie]

I love reading stories about newspaperman. Sadly, this sometimes means reading obituaries. There was a well-written one in the Irish Times at the weekend. It was about John Garvey, a Newry man who started his journalistic career on the Belfast Telegraph, just a little before the time of many of us here. This is the obituary:

NEWSPAPERMAN WHO HAD BLACK
INK RUNNING THROUGH HIS VEINS

JOHN GARVEY had black ink running through his veins. That was what his
colleagues said. He understood "hot metal" newspaper production so well.
The world of inky galleys, clattering manual typewriters, even louder
Linotype machines, the smell of molten lead, reading type backwards "on the
stone" before the big old printing press roared into life, spitting out papers hastily gathered into vans speeding off through the night...

Garvey – he was Garvey to those who worked with him, said with a mixture of
respect and affection – had something else.
He had an intuitive grasp of what would interest readers, a "good story".

"He could smell news," one said. It used to be unkindly said that The Irish
Times wouldn’t know what news was, but could tell people what to think about it
afterwards, and the Irish Independent only knew news when it appeared in the
Irish Press.

All generalisations, but there was a kernel of truth in them, and the Press
newsroom was recognised as the finished article.

John Garvey was born in Newry, and lived to see his home town
designated a city. He attended St Colman’s school Newry – John Magee, later
papal secretary and bishop of Cloyne, was a contemporary – in a fine old redbrick
building which had once been the Dromore diocesan seminary.

After he finished school he began working in journalism for the Belfast Telegraph.
Later he moved to England, working for what was then the Manchester Guardian, and the Daily Mail. There he met Joyce Reilly, a Scottish woman from Dundee, and they married.

They chose to live in Ireland and when John Garvey joined the Irish Press in
1964, the group’s three titles were in rude good health. The Sunday Press
outsold the Sunday Independent (there was no Sunday World ) and the Irish Press ,
though it trailed the Irish Independent, was way ahead of The Irish Times.

Garvey began work as a sub-editor and quickly rose through the ranks, in
turn becoming chief sub-editor, assistant editor, then deputy editor and
leader writer on the flagship daily paper.

The Irish Press was founded by Éamon de Valera in 1931 "to give the truth in
the news" and to support the Fianna Fáil party.

Garvey summarised the link with Fianna Fáil thus: "Irish Press newspapers
have shared in many Fianna Fáil triumphs.
We have also had our differences, as family friends invariably do. But our
relationship remains special, bound by our history and common ideals."

Garvey’s work rate was prodigious. Anthony Garvey recalls his father getting
home from work after midnight.

"When I was 12- years-old, I’d be in bed and I’d hear the door open, and I’d
slip downstairs. He’d hand me a copy of the first edition of the morning
paper, and a
pencil. My job was to find misspellings. For each one that I found, he gave
me a square of chocolate. Then he phoned the night editor to make sure the
corrections were made for the city edition."

His daughter Claire recalled going with him to the theatre when he was
reviewing a show. "He liked Opal Fruits [sweets] but not the red ones, so I had to take them out of the box beforehand. Crosswords were a passion, a common enough one among journalists and printers alike."

Another pastime was nine holes of golf – not more – at Howth.
In 1987 Tim Pat Coogan unexpectedly quit as editor of the Irish Press . Many
expected Garvey’s time had come, but the job went to Hugh Lambert, a
respected colleague, and for Garvey it was business as usual. In the end it made
little difference.

Three national newspapers eventually collapsed in 1995
(with the loss of 600 jobs), at a time when newspapers had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to remake themselves, with windfall funds from sales of their stakes in Reuters news agency.
As the Press group fades from memory, the roll call of talented people whose
careers began or was advanced there is often overlooked. It is too long to
recite here.

Many household names had good reason to remember good advice, gruffly given, and the skilled editing of their copy by the man they called Garvey.

After the Press closed, John Garvey worked as a freelance, filing copy for
Irish and British trade titles. He was working on one such piece on the day
a heart attack signalled his final deadline.

He is survived by his widow Joyce and children Anthony, Claire and Andrew.

John Garvey: born, November 18th, 1935, died, November 24th, 2011.

[Graham]

Belfast Telegraph at it again. Headline story online is: "FIRST DAY OF SNOW BRINGS CHAOS TO N IRELAND"

Well, if that was chaos yesterday, I wonder how the Bel Tel would describe last winter's freeze-up? "N Ireland in meltdown"? Er..no, that wouldn't do, it actually wouldn't melt and there was...er, chaos.

A BT reader comments on the BT site:
"What a Mickey Mouse place...four flakes of snow, a dip in temperature, and it's headline news"

We're having a hell of a time here - in just seven days "N Ireland grinds to as halt" and now "Chaos in N Ireland" - BT. Phew!

[Blogmaster]

WHO WAS THIS MAN?

MS send us an email with an interesting picture attached.

John, he says,"I came on a clipping of this picture and item from the News Letter. Might be of interest to the CopyBoys. Somebody might know who 'Jonathan' is." - Mitch

The photo caption read: Their hearts were young and gay. Bud Bossence (right) and Jimmy Kennedy, life-long friends, as they looked when cub reporters on the Northern Whig.

*News Letter, Nov. 11, 1971. From The Diary, by Jonathan. He writes:
"I was privileged to share a Features page with Ralph Bossence from time to time over the years. Moreover, we lived within shouting distance of one another on the Lisburn Road. Alas, I was never within shouting distance of him as a writer. But then, what other local journalist was?

"He was like Oliver Goldsmith in that he wrote like an angel; unlike Goldsmith, he talked almost as well as he wrote. He was one of those rare beings who could bring a shaft of sunlight into the darkest day.

"His illness deprived us of what would have been a fascinating series of despatches from faraway places. At the time when he went into hospital he already had in his pocket airline tickets to cover round-the-world journey for the News Letter.

"It was not to be. However, what he did succeed in doing was even more remarkable - to cheer us all up with his indomitable despatches from a hospital bed."

*The picture MS sent us is now in the Pictures album.

[sm]

I'm fairly sure that the "Jonathan" Mitch refers to was John Midgley. That piece was written just after Bud's death in November, 1971 and John took over the Diary column from me sometime after I'd been shifted from being "The Roamer" to the News Desk in 1969.

[Graham]

THE NAME'S THE SAME

Apparently journalist David Leigh of the Guardian once phoned journalist David Leigh of the Daily Mirror to tell him to change his by-line as he (Leigh of the Guardian) "had it first"

I remember that when Ken Nixon, ex-TV Post, ex-Bel Tel, worked at the BBC there was a regular piece on the sports news prefaced with the announcement: "Here's Ken Nixon" reporting on some match or other. Much confusion. But it wasn't our Ken.

Instead it was an outside contributor, who apparently was a solicitor or magistrate, can't remember which. Any other "names the same" examples?

[Smyth]

Wasn't there a James Robinson of the Daily Mail (known locally as Peter) and a James Robinson of UTV and later police PR? And there's a Nick Davies of the Guardian (the man who broke hacking stories) and Nick Davies, former forn editor of the Mirror.

[Smyth again]

And there's the gentle Alastair McQueen, late of the Daily Mirror, and an imposter on this blog who regularly needles our esteemed Chairman.

[Graham McKenzie]

Only two of them? That's nothing. Google Graham McKenzie and you'll get 14,300,000 results. That's 14.3 million

[Michael]

Expenses x 14.3 million? Always knew he could buy and sell the lot of us.

[Don McAleer]

Jimmy Robinson of UTV and later the NIO Press Office often talked of his interview with the Beatles. Look here
http://www.u.tv/utvplayer/video/121585

And he also starred with other famous folk in a Cilla Black Press Conference. This is how they once did it
http://www.u.tv/utvplayer/video/121589

Those were the days my friends. Magic.

[sm]

Nice to see Kay Kenne3dy and Trevor Hanna at Cilla's Press Conference as well.

[sm]

Sorry about the 3!

[Graham McKenzie]

LEVESON INQUIRY

The Leveson Inquiry is busy summoning people to give evidence about the wrongs done to them by the press.

I am wondering, however, if Leveson is going to send out witness summonses to people for whom the press had righted wrongs,uncovered scams, launched appeals, solved problems?

All part of the "practice and ethics" of the press, surely?

[A.McQ]

Remember one thing, ladies, gentlemen and fellow Copyboys: When all this is over there will still be more shady parasites called lawyers and thieving accountants in the nations jails than there will be reporters. There will also be a lot more coppers. And they will be in the chokey because reporters have exposed many of them in their newspapers and on their radio and tv programmes.