MR HACK No. 124

We get emails and most contain something amusing and even useful ... Our illustrious Chairman send me one recently with a pic attached. He wrote:"John. Have some information on the mystery picture. It was given to me a few years back by my brother-in-law Willie Harbinson, who worked as a copyboy in the Belfast Telegraph in the late '30s and up to December 1940. The picture was taken in the File Room in the Belfast Telegraph and the people around the table include the then sports editor, Joe Sherlock and two Miss Farrels (sisters). The group were involved in the Telegraph's 'Spitfire Appeal' where it called on readers to contribute money to build more fighters for the RAF. Willie Harbinson is the 15-yr-old blonde boy at the back. He tells me the fund was set up and the Telegraph put a couple of office girls on the task of dealing with the mail. However they were inundated with letters with cheques and postal orders and they had to set up a volunteer committee from editorial and other departments to cope. Willie tells me the picture was taken around August 1940 at the height of the Battle of Britain. It was no later because there was a rule that copyboys had to leave when the got to 16 and Willie was 16 that December. He tried for a job in the printing end because of his interest in engineering but in those days it was a closed shop with fathers bringing their sons into the trade. Willie later joined the RAF and wound up as an aircraft fitter, maintaining Spitfire engines. Back in Civvy Street in 1945, he met and married my late sister Eleanor and eventually was in charge of the machinery  of Belfast's Park Department until his retirement. He has many happy memories of his time in the Telegraph with people like Fred Moore and Paddy Keenan. He is nearly 90 now and says he will try very hard to come up with some more names but like most of us at our age, remembering names doesn't come so easy. He recalls the Spitfire fund as an exciting time with various towns and even streets competing to see who could raise the most money. Not sure how an appeal like that would work now. Willie tells me there is a big piece about the Spitfire fund in Brodie's history of the Telegraph. I have a copy but damned if I can lay my hands on it at the moment. But I'm sure you have a copy yourself and can look it up if you ever need to use that photograph. If I find out any more I'll let you know. BILLY" ... My own investigation turned up that Joe Sherlock was not Sports Editor, but he worked with the legendary Harry Duff on the dogs. Anyway, my mind wondered/wandered when seeing the youthful Willie Harbinson if we should start a photo album with youthful pix of our contributors ... a sort of Who Is This, Then? I shall wait and see if I am sent pix of people we know before we knew them ....

Comments

[Chairman]

It is probable that there are a few journalists still around who worked for Belfast newspapers during the War. Most of us were infants or a twinkle in pater's eye in 1940. However all of us will have heard tales from old hands when we started out in newspapers. The late Hammy McDowell had a fund of them, particularly about his service with the Irish Guards in Italy. His friend, the late great Bud Bossence, once wrote teasingly....

Hammy McDowell
Is hard to thole
Whenever he talks wittily
About Italy.

The Belfast Telegraph still had nothing but ads on the front page in the 1940s, but I recall seeing some of the wonderful front pages, in the Whig library, designed by the late Bob Beattie (Howard Beattie's father) for the old Northern Whig during the war years. Particularly his layout for VE Day.

[Michael]

Chairman's old picture awakened many memories. In the early 60s a large model Spitfire (about 3ft wingspan) hung in the dining room on the fourth floor. It had been built for the appeal and carried the legend BT73, the BT being obvious and the 73 being telegraphic code for good wishes. I wonder what happened to it?

By that time the Misses Farrell in the picture had charge of the library. Rotund and silver-haired, Miss Annie in her blue dustcoat gave pride of place to the Methodist Church, faithfully archiving every event from teaparty to conference.

The Church of Ireland received about 50% of her coverage, but when I was writing a story about the Roman Catholic Church Annie handed me a thin brown folder containing only a dozen or so clippings. She looked at me as though I had asked for a porn magazine.

[RedRick]

Going back to the Ever Eddie Album, some more names from the "Time To Revel" picture which was obviously taken at one of the great Photograhers Christmas parties thrown by Brian Houston in the Bass Brewery, Glen Road - Front From Left -(2nd) Eddie Harvey (Newsletter); (4th) Trevor Dickson (Newsletter); (6th) Darren Kidd (Sunday Life now PressEye); (9th)the late Brian Houston Bass PR) and 2nd from right Hugh Russell (Irish News).
Middle From Left-(2nd) the late John Harrison (Freelance);(4th)Gerry Fitzgerald (Belfast Telegraph;(6th)Brendan Murphy (Irish News).
Back From Left) The late Geoff Lennon (Freelance); Brian Thompson (Freelance now PressEye) (4th).............. (at that time the only female freelance Press Photographer in Belfast) who's name I should know but can't recall!!! (5th) Alan ..... (Freelance from up the Shankill) and the final one I recognise in the back row is Paul McErlane (Freelance). By the way whatever became of good PR men/women in Belfast,names apart from Brian Houston that Copyboys may recall with affection and maybe some sore heads were,John Kenny, Ulster Bank; Stanley Aicken, First Trust; Eddie Boyle, Coca Cola; Trevor at Bord Failte and others especially at Guinness whose names for the moment escape me!

[Chris Ryder]

There was also the legendary Des Broadberry at Guinness and Jack Duddy at Gallahers who were lavish with sponsorships, entertaining and free samples.

[sm]

Some of those PR guys I found helpful over the years included Don Faughnan (NITB); Greg Coulson (Post Office); Eric Thurley - also NITB and also at one time British Rail; chap called Patterson - PR for one of the big multi-nationals (ICI - Courtaulds?); Bill Thompson, RAC (now lives in Newark); Don McLearnon - (I think!) - AA; Gordon Duffield of course and Bob Shaw. Now my memory's gone!

[RedRick]

Just remembered the female freelance's name, it is of course Lesley Doyle - how could I forget!!

[Michael Drake]

Yes , I remember Ms Doyle....where is she now...michael drake.
Imay be wrong but I recall another girl taking pics when I was active in the Belfast NUJ branch but cannot recall her name.....I

[Michael Drake]

Talking about photographers.....where is Peter Woodard if anyone remembers him

[JC]

Slightly disappointed that no one seems to have taken up my invitation to send me jpegs of themselves as they once were ... Apologies. One person has which is appreciated. Also, I thought there might have been a comment or two about the wonderful Ian Hislop/Newman production on TV last weekend, the Wipers Times which in case no one watched it told the story of a First World War newsheet invented by a man suffering in the trenches who thought it would be a good idea and fun to report what was happening or appeared to be happening around them as the shells fell and the bullets and gas searched them out. It is still available on iplayer ... I would loved to have read KB's review of it.

[JC]

Ps ... There was an excellent performance of a newspaper editor and I watched closely the credits but did not recognise a name I expected to see: I thought the actor might have been called Fitzsimmons (not a great stage name, I know) who once upon a time I employed to write articles for the Belfast Telegragh and who later went on to play the role of an old farmer in an TV commercial for Golden Cow butter ... could be wrong, but as the Wipers Times editor he was the spittin' image of him as I remember him.

[Michael]

As another of these terrible abuse cases emerges from the depths, perhaps other Copyboys are remembering Kincora. The Beeb even showed a brief shot of the house at the end of its report.

The Press got no further than we did with Savile a decade previously. Fleet Street, like the Beeb, knew what he was but nobody revealed it. I wonder will the Kincora story ever come to light?

[Eddie Sterling jnr]

Many thanks, everyone, for your tributes to my father, Eddie Sterling snr. Particularly, I would like to thank Eddie McIlwaine for his superb obituary in the Belfast Telegraph - the family circle loved your piece, Eddie - and John Caruth, for his work on the picture gallery 'Ever Eddie'.
What a character my dad was. But he lives on in The Copyboys.
Eddie jnr

[A.McQ.]

And don't forget that other bucket of lard Cyril Smith - all "cuddly Uncle Cyril" for the cameras - but a hard-faced arrogant bastard away from the lenses when he didn't like your questions. We clashed a time or two on the doorstep of his "wee palace" where he lived with his old mum. It now appears that the reputations of Smith, Savile and some of those Kincora abusers were more important than the obscene agony of their victims. MI5 and Special Branch as well as quite a few politicians and members of the Establishment still alive have questions to answer over all of these scandals. Maybe the government is trying to keep a lid on Kincora etc until long after all the deviants are dead "to spare their families." But what about the children?

[KB]

The bloke in the Wipers Times, whom JC was wondering about, was Patrick Fitzsymons who turns up in a lot of things including that ad where they were on a fishing boat. On a similar theme, while the comedy series Big School on BBC1 is pretty dire, it's great to see the legendary Jimmy Greene in it.

[JC]

Thanks, KB ... I learned this from another Facebook source which showed a better list of the actor's names that did not appear in iplayer. I have happy memories of working with Patrick and it was good to see he is enjoying success. Agree with you about the Big School; one showing was enough for me and, yes, it was good to see UTV's old boy Jimmy Greene is still being getting to show off his skills.

[Tom Carson]

The Wipers Times was well acted and it was poignant in all the places where it mattered. A slight unease at the "Oh What a Lovely War"- type variety sketches that were used to animate the satirical squibs that had been printed on paper in the grim trenches. But of course some way had to be devised to translate inky jokes into audio-visual gags. I endorsed the sergeant's delight at the discovery of a platen press in the ruins of Ypres. Any child of our generation who had ever yearned for a printing outfit would share that delight.

[Chairman]

There don't seem to be any TV critics around with the wit and class of Clive James and our own KB, The kind of prose you could enjoy even if you didn't have a TV set. Tried watching Big School. Tried to figure out what old sitcoms had that so few of the modern ones lack. I think it might be warmth. Clever-clever is fine but a good comedy has to have heart too.

[A.McQ.]

Interesting point, Mr Chairman. Other than the news and live sport my son's "television" is mainly DVDs and boxed sets of old comedy shows such as Only Fools And Horses, Dad's Army, Birds of a Feather. When I asked him why his response was a simple one: The modern stuff is stilted, shallow and tries too hard - the old stuff is classic with superb actors and actresses performing to good scripts.

[JC]

Thank you, Tom ... you make my effort to draw attention to the Wipers Times worthwhile. I can still remember being shown round the composing room of the old Spectator in Bangor and somehow feeling a warmth and appreciation of the art of printing ... we may well have had platen press in the building for proofing many of the additional jobbing that we did, apart from the newspapers.

[Derek Black]

That damned film is not available on iPlayer - will have to wait and hope for a rescreening...

Back to the amazing pic at the top of this column. What a moment in time! I am particularly taken by the neat hair dos - ladies with neat partings and men short and glossed down, doubtless with Brylcreem! Clearly well before rock and roll and the long-haired and scruffy Sixties. Everyone was so spick and span Maybe that is how we won the war - plus the Telegraph Spitfire(s) of course! Anybody remember how many there were?

[JC]

My first thought at seeing the picture was that the man at the typewriter was Tommy Anderson, who I had the privilge of working with on the subs desk in Features. He was, I seem to remember, an editor of the ISN in the early days and he once proudly showed me cuttings he had kept of his reporting - a war time investigation of spies in Belfast. His words took up at least two whole pages and was well read I imagine. Back then you didn't keep it short and sweet.

[Michael]

Back then you didn't keep it short and sweet.

You're right John, the old hands were expected to produce width as well as quality! I remember Tommy Anderson, a really nice man who was a mine of info on matters sporting. He kept me from disaster more than once on those Saturday afternoons when I was bored to tears with sport and all connected to it.

David Kirk Senior, night ed in the NL during the 70s, also told tales of the old days. In particular, one had to provide two columns on many matches without referring to the ball more than once. Variants included the Leather Sphere, the elusive orb, the boot's flying target etc etc.

[A.McQ.]

Those Wipers Times afficionados among you may be interested to know that all of P93 of yesterday's Times was given over to a picture which included the two officers involved and belated obituaries of Lt Col Frederick Roberts, the editor, and Major John "Jack" Pearson, sub-editor. Roberts died in 1964 and Pearson in 1966. The obituaries are by the military author and historian Allan Mallinson. Ten original copies of The Wipers Times are available for viewing by researchers at the National Army Museum in London.

[JC]

Thanks for the alert, Alastair ... here is a link to the feature http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/courtsocial/article3874996.ece

[Roy Lilley]

A MAN WORTH
REMEMBERING ...

Further to my mention of Tommy Anderson at the Telegraph, I received an email from Roy Lilley:

Malcolm Brodie’s History of the Belfast Telegraph Page 112:

“During the 1950s the Telegraph had many journalists of pedigree. There was….and quietly spoken Tommy Anderson, a noted shorthand expert, who for a period edited Ireland’s Saturday Night. He also wrote a book on the Ulster-born presidents of the United States and contributed some brilliant feature articles, including a poignant one on the arrival in Belfast of the ships which repatriated prisoners of war.”

Elsewhere in the Book (Page 249) MB refers to Tommy as “a brilliant general reporter.”

I have particular personal memories of the man. I was working as a timekeeper on a building site after leaving school but had long-before decided that I wanted to become a journalist. Naively, I wrote to the Editors of all the newspapers I could think of – including Fleet Street titles - asking for a job as a trainee reporter. Only one replied – Tommy Anderson. He gave me sound advice about how it was best to learn my trade on a small weekly and the qualities a good reporter needed to bring to the job.

Encouraged by this response, I submitted an essay – alas 57 years on I cannot remember the subject matter – for publication in the ISN. It wasn’t accepted, but Tommy returned it to me with an explanation of why it was unsuitable and advice on how an article for a newspaper should be structured.

Two lessons I never forgot.

When the Telegraph was bombed on 15 September 1976, it was almost mid-night before anyone other than electrical and structural engineers could gain access to the building for safety reasons. It seemed that there was no possibility of a paper being produced next day and staff were asked to convene the following afternoon.

I was in the building next morning about 10am surveying the damage and making arrangements with other managers to activate the Doomsday Plan – a plan to print an edition of the BT in such an emergency at Thomson’s Withy Grove plant in Manchester - when I got a call from the Editor of the Daily Mail asking if I would send him the leader that I would have published had it been possible to produce a paper. But an hour or so afterwards it appeared that there just might be a chance of producing a paper and having it printed locally after all.

By co-incidence Tommy Anderson’s funeral was taking place at that very moment. I sent a taxi to intercept the BT journalists present and ask them to return to Royal Avenue immediately the funeral was over.

Such was the genesis of The Penny Marvel which later that evening went on sale to loud cheers at the Ideal Home Exhibition at the King’s Hall.

[Michael]

I enjoyed last week's reminders of all the PR persons in the days when journalists wrote the news and the spinners were lucky to obtain a few pars. I remember Jack Duddy from reporting the Gallaher Circuit of Ireland Rally in the 60s although, of course, the lineage was in no means proportional to the hospitality provided. Perish the thought.

Not all writers can remain totally immune from such temptation, one of them being David Loch. I encountered him while researching a book on my family history, my ancestors being sailors and ferrymen serving the Queen's Passage across the Firth of Forth from around 1650 until 1890, when the Forth Rail Bridge took most of their business.

In 1778, admittedly rather before my time, David Loch published a book on The Commerce of Scotland. He talks to an Edinburgh wine merchant and suggests immediate peace talks to increase trade with France, which apparently produces the most excellent red wines. Indeed he has a couple of boxes to keep in mind the product. Further north near Perth he encounters the most excellent waistcoats, and urges readers to patronise his outfitter. In another town he samples the most excellent snuff ... you get the idea.

His homeward journey took him to the Queen's Ferry, in its day the busiest in the British Isles, and David doubtless thought to avoid his 3d fare for the one-mile sailing south to Edinburgh. Alas my ancestors had no concept of PR, for David's prose is now immortalised along a wall in the South Queensferry Museum:

The McRitchies and other boatmen seem to be as indolent as they are insolent, being really under no sort of order, authority or discipline.

More than two centuries later, one of my former employers says that he could not have put it better himself.

[Tom Carson]

It was good to see the energetic show the Belfast Telegraph gave to Stevie Lee's cartoons this week. In their five handsomely printed booklets they showed how close he is to he heels of news stories and how nimble his pen is in conjuring up colourful situations.
In my time with the Tele I found it very pleasant to work with Rowel Friers, a superb draughtsman and painter with a distinctive sense of humour. He was a patron of the arts, theatrical as well as visual. Billy Simpson and he set out on many forays into local life and brought back features full of fun. On a different scale of draughtsmanship Rowel's sketchbooks from events like the Auld Lammas Fair were a fine record of detail in sure pen strokes.
And other newspaper artists linger in the memory. In boyhood days our family used to follow Sidney Strube's little man in the Daily Express. He always wore a flattish kind of bowler hat. In later days I think it was in the News Chronicle that I first encountered the work of Ronald Searle.
Ian Knox (who signs himself Blotski) has impressed his style on my mind through the Irish News and the BBC's Hearts and Minds. And Martyn Turner has a distinctive touch in the Irish Times. The two wee birds at the edge of the frame say everything that onlookers say when they look calmly at an unfolding disaster.
The website for the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists is worth a visit if only to browse the abundant talent in the States, most notably that of David Horsey, who used to be with the Seattle P and I, and is now a plank in the op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times.
And the British Cartoon Archive site reproduces David Low's iconic image of a British soldier standing on a rock in a storm-tossed sea and shaking a defiant fist at the black clouds above him. "Very Well Alone". The date is 18 June 1940.
As you gather, these are, as the song goes, "some of my favourite things." You can probably think of other artists who made your day when you opened the paper.

[Chairman]

Had to get up at the crack of dawn for an appointment this morning, which was why I caught that little "thought for the day" piece just before the 7am Northern Ireland News. Don't know the name of the lady who gave the little parable but one sentence stuck in my mind. She said "When someone dies a library burns down." I presume what she meant is that each of us carries a unique fund of knowledge, whether important or inconsequential, and every scrap of information or idea or emotion we've experinced is lost forever. It occurred to me that this Copyboys blog, thanks to contributors like Michael McRitchie, is becoming a unique little library of stuff that only we have experienced in our different capacities. Within these 120 odd blogs is a treasury of snippets of social history. The pity of it is that, while many read Copyboys, very few actually honour us with their stories. I hope more of you will start telling us your memories, yarns, anecdotes etc. We can't have too many libraries burning down. Try to think of the blog as a fire brigade rescuing your history from the flames. Get blogging. Twitter is for twits.

[A.McQ.]

Well said, Billy. Nostalgia, they say, is a thing of the past, but....some of the contributors on here bring the past back to life in the most fascinating way. So heed The Best Chairman We Ever Had and get writing you idle old buggers.

[JC]

Like Tom, I worked with Rowel Friers and I can remember the Feature Desk discussions over captions to his cartoons when Rowel would occasional ring in and ask for a hand ... Funnily enough, years later I thought I had persuaded Ian Knox to join the Telegraph team as a cartoonist and I made him an offer which he accepted when I offered it. Days later, he telephoned me to say 'thank you' because the Irish News had given him a major rise and he put it down to my job offer bid. Clearly, he decided to stay with IN and I didn't argue with him. Nice, nice man. Martyn Turner, then, was able to provide me with his cartoons as a replacement and they were always sharp and on the money and always, always newsworthy. Happy memories indeed - and trying to please our Chairman with nostalgia.

[Blogmaster]

Just a note: there are two new pictures up in the photo albums, Legendary Joe Gorrod and Ever Eddie - our tribute to Eddie Sterling.

[Chairman s]

My old friend Tom Carson neglects to mention that he was a bit of a cartoonist himself and once contributed a comic strip to the Belfast Telegraph. Perhaps he'll recall for us what it was called and when it actually ran?

[Tom Carson]

The strip was called The Craigs. Not quite sure now when it ran.The Craigs were a family who week by week got on with the cheerful art of cheerful living. I think they may have captured a certain atmosphere before the Troubles struck. And I had a shot at another strip, a sci-fi story called Space 1990. I believe it was published in the 1960s and apparently in 1990 earthlings like us were hob-nobbing with strange-looking aliens from other worlds. Can't say I remember that actually coming to pass. By the 1990s we were all wresting with computers.

[Chairman]

Since I am aware that there are few folk in the world as cackhanded at technology as I, I am appealing for assistance from fellow Copyboys who are tech-smart. From time to time I like to record old film noir movies from the 1940s and '50s. For some reason many of these films are broadcast in the very early hours. Three, four or five in the morning. My problem is that the broadcasters have somehow got the idea that only deaf people watch these pictures. There is inevitably a little bald man in a bright orange suit down at the right hand corner using, what I assume, is hand-speak for the hard of hearing. I know it is not semaphore, I do not know how to get rid of this little man who is destroying any hope of becoming lost in the story. If anyone knows how to delete the little bugger, do tell. Recorded a musical once and there he was miming the lyrics of Johnny Mercer songs, which frankly, must lose something without the accompanying tune. Send any advice to me by e-mail - sim35son@btinternet.com. Thanks.

[Mitch Smyth]

Billy: I think you're stuck with the little man for ever and ever. Speaking of which, there's a ``little man'' in one of the great noirs: Double Indemnity. It's the little man in Edward G. Robinson's gut, the guy who tells him when an insurance claim is a fake. The only person his little man didn't warn him about was Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray).

[Derek Black]

Billy,

There may be a button on your remote that will turn him off! Try experimenting - whoops, maybe shouldn't have said that. You never know, you could end up with two wee orangemen. Or worse still, an orange man and woman who could breed and block the entire screen with little orange blobs. Still, this might inspire Tom to creating another comic strip!!

I dunno what TV service you use. Maybe it is Murdoch Sky, in which case it serves you right. But they may have a helpline you could ring. Usually, these services can be switched off. I use BT vision and you can get a caption commentary on programmes if you press a certain button. Press it again and it goes away.

[Chairman]

Thanks boys, you've been a great help/hinderance. Actually it was not the great classic Double Indemnity (one of my favourite noirs.) Three of the best actors of Hollywood's golden age and a script by Wilder and Chandler that sparkled like Crown Jewels. Ironically Fred McMurray wasn't the first choice for the role of Walter Neff. Several bigger stars were offered the role but thought playing a killer might ruin their image. George Raft was notorious for turning down great roles. "The Maltese Falcon" for one. Didn't want to work with an unknown director called John Huston. They say the movies Raft turned down made Humphrey Bogart's career. However I dare not accept Derek's advice to hit and hope with the buttons on the remote control. I've tried that with my computer and discovered that's how expensive accidents happen. The film that the little orange coloured man ruined for me was an old black and white popboiler from the 1940s "Dark Waters" with Merle Oberon, Thomas Mitchell and Franchot Tone. I'll never know whether it was any good or not. Was too busy devising extremely painful fates for the wee prat in the corner.

[Blogmaster]

Next week parliament again tries to think of ways to manhandle the Press and the Leveson's report comes up for debate with the Privy Council, I think. Read yesterday in the Daily Telegraph an article by Fraser Nelson,editor of the Spectator and I thought it worthwhile sharing. Here's a link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/10353230/Press-freedom-and-fairness-should-be-enshrined-in-a-British-Bill-of-Rights.html

[Michael]

Message to today's journalists, or the few that are left: please note that self-satisfied politicians and plods crowing about reductions in crime figures should be sharply corrected by inserting RECORDED crime.

What was once armed robbery is now dismissed as mugging, ie the victim is a mug for being robbed. Many people don't bother reporting petty crime because they believe the police will or can do nothing about it.

This week's rant is inspired by a 1962 front page from the BT, which reports that an 18-year-old street sweeper was sent for trial to Belfast City Commission charged with assaulting a housemaid with intent to rob.

Ah, remember those afternoons at the Commission, with an inside page lead at least and a column or two daily? These days street sweepers and housemaids are few and far between, as are the hefty prison sentences that highway robbers could expect.

[A.McQ.]

Some Copyboys occasionally dipped into Gentlemen Ranters, the website with newspaper tales of yesteryear. Well it's back today - for one edition only - a special to the legendary Ian Skidmore, reporter, author, broadcaster, TV star, boozer, roisterer, gourmet, connoisseur of fine wines - and not so fine - and many varieties of gin and malt whisky. Once met never forgotten. Here's the link if any of you are interested:
http://www.gentlemenranters.com/

[Chairman]

Thought for the day. "Stress is an ignorant state. It believes everything is an emergency." - Natalie Goldberg.

[JC]

Poor, poor Guardian ... it and its editor under attack from Government and the head of MI5 over publishing stolen secret documents ... what a todo and yet I read that it is losing money hand over fist and no one, bar a few diehards is buying the paper with the result that it may become a 'digitised' paper for laptops and pcs and not a good honourable newspaper.

[Michael]

Going back more than 50 years, does anyone remembers Joe Porter of the BT, who covered the High Court for decades?

In the first month of my reporting career I was introduced to an elderly man (cheeky brat, but all my seniors seemed elderly when I was 21). He wore a grey suit complete with waistcoat, a watchchain hung across his generous middle, and a bundle of copy paper protruded from his jacket pocket.

Joe greeted almost everyone as we entered the great hall of the court, bewigged barristers and suited solicitors all smiling in response. We sat down for hours of boring legal argument, relieved by Joe's frequent visits to the tearoom or the gents'. I didn't understand the legal wafflings beyond the basic premise that the lawyers always got paid whatever the outcome, nor how one reporter could cover half a dozen complex cases. But 50 years later I now understand the visits to the gents'.

As lunchtime approached Joe made a circular tour of the various parties, supplementing his notes with summaries from the lawyers. The most important item was the names of the barristers and instructing solicitors, which would appear in 6pt italic at the end of the report. Joe then sat down to fill page after page with spidery longhand, for he never mastered the new-fangled typewriter. I was sent back to the BT with the first couple of stories and when I appeared mildly miffed at being used as a messenger Freddie Gamble told me to get straight back to court and learn from the best court reporter I would ever find. In this he was, of course, quite correct.

As I recall, Joe worked on until the onset of the Troubles. I remember him with fondness to this day, as I remember the other old hands who did so much to teach me the trade.

[Cal McCrystal]

Michael, I remember Joe well and with affection, since I worked with him at the High Court for quite a while and joined him for a bottle of Guinness (or three) at a pub nearby where barristers and reporters imbibed lunch. Joe lived not far from me in Knock. Your mention of him brings back a singular memory.

One December at the High Court I became privy to a little annual ceremony, furtively arranged. Just before the court rose for Christmas, a County Antrim solicitor, famous for his baggy suits and circumspection, would arrive with a bottle of poteen - a strong but illicit spirit - in his briefcase. Year after year, the recipient of this rare gift was a judge known for his severe insistence on rectitude at all times, on all occasions.

I did not know his lordship socially (quite properly, High Court judges kept a good distance between themselves and journalists, even, I believe, on the golf course). But now and again, while listening to a barrister’s summing-up, he would turn his long, pink face towards the press benches where I sat, his intensely blue eyes a-twinkle with disbelief at what he was hearing. I formed the impression that he had a great deal of humour and humanity in him.

He is now long dead (this was in the early 1960s), but I shall not identify him, even at this posthumous remove, lest I should give offence to family survivors or undermine the legend for decorum with which his name is synonymous. Nor shall I expose the bootlegging solicitor, in case he is still alive and kicking lawsuits around.

One December, his lordship went off on vacation a day or two earlier than had been his wont. Dismayed to find the object of his high-proof affections absent, the solicitor entered the High Court press room and asked me if I should like something special for Christmas. Young, but instinctively guarded with Antrim lawyers bearing gifts, I asked him what it was. He opened his briefcase and withdrew a bottle labelled ‘Smirnoff Vodka’.

‘There y’are! From the Glens of Antrim, and nowhere would ye beat it the length and breadth of the lan’,’ he said.

‘Vodka?’, I exclaimed, puzzled.

‘Ach, ye’re stupid? Not vodka, nor holy water either ... ’

I held the contraband gingerly, my eyes flicking from its clear liquid to my benefactor and back again.

I whispered: ‘Is it pot ... ?,’ about to utter the potent word.

‘In the name of God, ye eejit, houl’ yer tongue!’ he muttered, glancing nervously over his shoulder.

As I wrapped the bottle in sheets of A4, he let me in on the secret. ‘Charlie [the judge] likes a drop of this for the festive season. Every man has his weakness, but this is one of Charlie’s strengths, bless the man. I go to his room, open the door and place it against the wall inside. Have ye ever had a good dart at it before? No? Ach, it’s too good for ye, but I can’t be luggin’ it round the courts. Happy Christmas.’

I didn’t dare ask him about a judicial quid pro quo. I’m reasonably certain there wasn’t one. Anyway, by the time I had consumed the judge’s bent booze I was past caring. I was also satisfied that the Antrim lawyer was not trying to bribe me, but was treating me merely as a convenient dump.

[Chairman]

I remember Joe Porter from my time on the Northern Whig. Being a morning paper we had the luxury of being able to walk back to the office and type up the cases from the Magistrate's court at our relative leisure. In court, Joe Porter had his notebook but also a sheef of blank copy paper and he wrote his reports as he went along. Handed them to a copyboy who ran back to the Telegraph office with the copy in time for the early editions. Frankly it sounds prehistoric to how it is today when you can type a sentence and push a button and know that it can fly at Warp 5 to the other side of the world in nano-seconds. I remember from my own time as a reporter on the Telegraph and earlier on the PA when one of the constant pressures was to find a public telephone that worked. I recall many times having to run so far to find a phone that, that prince of copytakers, the mighty Bob Young, couldn't make out a word I was gasping. Different world now. God but a mobile would have been handy back when....

[Chairman]

Have any other Copyboys found that the NEW BT-Yahoo web page has done nothing except slow down your broadband and cock up requests. For some reason, no matter how often I fill in their form on Your BTYahoo has changed message, the damn thing won't go away. Every time I switch on it arrives like a rash. I've even defragged the computer but nothing seems to help. Are they trying to sell me some new service. I don't want to pay for BT Sport. I wouldn't be watching it. Methinks they are trying to get me on to their Cloud thingy.

[A.McQ.]

Billy,
Typical of BT some smartarse came up with what he or she thought was an extremely clever idea, a talentless boss went along with it and now we have a classic case of "putting right what didn't need fixing in the first place." It is one of the most monumental balls-ups I have seen since I bought my very first computer back in the day when Amstrad ruled the world!

[Chairman]

Good. Thanks Alastair. Thank God I'm not the only one in diffs. I was beginning to think my personal magnetism was affecting the computer.

[JC]

Just a footnote: the 'cloud thingy' that our Chairman mentions is I believe one of the best ways to store information on a laptop or pc ... it was recommended to me by an expert, but sadly like our Chairman I did not understand fully what it was and rejected the idea, too. Pity.

[Blogmaster]

Our friend Terence Bowman and ex editor of the Mourne Observer has another book of memories of times past launched next week ... This one is about Ards in the Sixties and no doubt will, like the other books, sell like hot cakes. The official launch is at the Arts Centre in the Town Hall in Conway Square in Newtownards on Friday week (7pm) and the book will feature items from the Newtownards Chronicle and the Newtownards Spectator with contributions from our own regular contributor Stewart Mackay. Another name in the book is an old Chronicle reporter remembered by our Chairman - Margaret Cavan Day who has been living in Canada for a long, long time. Her Dad, of course, was Harry Cavan, once upon a time the secretary of Ards FC and a big noise in local and international football.

[Michael]

Our revered Chairman's comments on finding phones to reach the copytakers remind me of the Circuit of Ireland glory days in the mid-60s. The five-day event would travel around Ireland over the Easter holiday and I had great fun both reporting it and afterwards.

The considerable mileage involved was agreed in advance with JES and TMcM, the joint managing editors, as a package deal. However, by this time I had learned enough to agree an extra allowance for telephones.

By its nature the Rally had special stages in the Cork and Kerry mountains. The nearest pub was at least 10 miles away and often much further. The long-distance, transfer charge phone calls had to be booked a couple of hours in advance.

The extra mileage in finding a phone and booking a call therefrom, going to the special stage, returning to phone the report for the Fourth, and repeating the process for the ISN added up to a tidy sum. I enjoyed the subsequent squirming and girning of TMcM almost as much as I enjoyed the event itself.

[Smyth]

``Many of the articles (in the new International New York Times) remain wedded to what we Brits would regard as dropped intros.'' That's Greenslade in thursday's Guardian blog (which Alastair won't read, in case some Guardian flavor rubs off on him). But tell me. what in God's name is a dropped intro?

[Derek Black]

Does it mean not getting to the point until half-way down the story? The opposite of what most of us were taught. Intro should be stand-alone in case story is cut back to a par!

[Chairman]

I was also taught when I began in weekly papers to write as colourful an intro as possible to disguise the fact that there really wasn't a story. We had to tart up a lot of non-stories in the weeklies to fill the space between the ads and take a couple of columns to tell a story that could have been told better in a couple of hundred words. Maybe weekly papers have more to write about today but the first front page lead I ever wrote for the Newtownards Spectator was about a civic ball I wasn't at that had taken place the week before I joined the paper. I recall a lot of head scratching on deadline days deciding which non story to promote. But that was before the Troubles which I recall fondly as a Twilight Zone of relative normality before the world got newsier.

[A.McQ.]

Don't ever let the FACTS stand in the way of your viewpoint, Mitch. So let's just set the record straight by saying I glance at Greenslade's blog most days. I won't have the bloody paper in the house, though! A dropped intro is exactly what it says it is. Regional newspapers would rarely use them and you'd never use a dropped intro on a real hard news story such as a murder or serious crime or big tragedy. It's more or less a space-filler and normally accompanied a picture. I haven't seen one in a long time. Back in the day you needed a special touch to get away with it and only the better reporters were trusted to do them. Greenslade was never a national newspaper reporter.

[JC]

Only you could have told us/written that Alastair and thank God you did! It's one of the reasons I still think this place does what its creator hoped it would do. Hit nails on the head and make a good point. Cheers.

[Derek Black]

One exponent of the dropped intro was aRobert Glenton who used to review cars for the Sunday Express. Former BT editor Eugene Wason was an admirer and advised me to adopt a similar style! He would rave about spring flowers - or whatever - for two thirds of the article before mentioning the car in the last three or four paragraphs.

I notice that Jeremy Clarkson is prone to using this style in his Sunday Times columns so it has not gone away completely- just been moved to what we used to call features...

[Cal McCrystal]

The old Sunday Times Insight team occasionally parodied itself with what I suppose might be called a dropped intro. The intention was to provide atmosphere before getting to the point. An intro might go something like this, for example:-

It was three minutes after midnight. A half-moon emerged from cloud to reveal the litter-gorged gutters of Troll Street in Upper Islington, and what looked like a large rag-doll behind an unkempt hedge. As a barely-audible Rolls-Bentley slowly approached, its headlights penetrated the gloom behind the hedge. The rag-doll twitched, groaned and rolled over. Blood pouring from a bullet hole in his left cheek-bone, Sam Dingle was in the final few seconds of his life.

[Chris Ryder]

I would use the term 'anecdotal' intro to describe Cal's example.

[Derek Black]

maybe 'hanging intro' rather than 'dropped' if my memory serves?

[smyth]

Thanks guys especially Cal. Now I understand ..It appears to be what we in North America call a slow burner lead (pronounced lede or leed) .AND can someone tell me : why this hate of the Guardian and does that hate extend to The Observer ?

[smyth]

Trying hard tofind the relevance in the remark that Greenslade was never a national newspaper reporter. Does that disqualify him from punditry?

[Chairman]

Punditry is endemic in newspapermen everywhere. And the older we get the more pundit we get. I was tempted to write a letter to BT who are supposed to be protecting me from Spam. But the Spamist Armada seems to be targeting the elderly, hoping we can be seduced into having an accident so we can take advantage of the opportunity to claim against someone. Lately I've been offered the opportunity for a psychic reading and a dating for seniors service. I've been sent photographs of possible dates - and some of them are pictures of men. I have to delete twenty or more from my Spam file every day. Why is BT allowing this to happen? I thought it was illegal. That is my pund for the day. I'm pundited out. I think I'll go and lie down now.

[Chris Ryder]

I get endless unsolicited telephone calls about my 'entitlement' to a new boiler, compensation for missold credit cards, funeral plans and money because 'health-threatening' main electricity lines cross my property. That's without the regular emails from frisky ladies with exotic names - many apparently Eastern European or Russian - offering me life-changing sexual thrills and excitement. As my mind has long made appointments my abused body could only aspire to, I lull myself to sleep sweetly dreaming about the lavish treats all these sales-pitching promises would buy me. Then I wake up to more pitches of the said variety and quietly seethe.

[Blogmaster]

OBITUARY

Tributes paid to sincere
and dedicated journalist

TRIBUTES have been paid to a
former long-serving Irish News
employee who has died following
a battle with ill-health.
Joseph Fitzpatrick, who worked for
The Irish News for almost 50 years,
died on Sunday at the Royal Victoria
Hospital in Belfast.
The 69-year-old, who lived in Glengormley,
started with the company in
May 1961 as an apprentice compositor
and went on to work in a range of departments
in the newspaper.
He worked as both a delivery driver
and acting advertising manager and
in the late 1980s retrained as a
sub-editor.
Joe was also the editor of Faith matters
for a time and in later years became
letters editor.
He also held a senior role in the
National Graphical Association trade
union.
A long-serving member of the National
Union of Journalists, Joe retired
from The Irish News in February 2010,
after almost five decades.
He was also widely known in swimming
circles and had been the paper’s
swimming correspondent.
During his time reporting on the
sport, he travelled to Vancouver to
cover the Commonwealth Games.
He was also the honorary secretary
of Swim Ulster and vice president and
press officer for Belfast-based Alliance
Swim Club.
Irish News editor Noel Doran said
he was “deeply saddened” to learn of
Joe’s death.
“Joe was not only a long-serving and
respected colleague but also a very
good friend to many of us in the paper,”
he said.
“He had an amazing career with The
Irish News, covering periods in the
printing, advertising and editorial departments
in the course of almost half
a century in Donegall Street.
“Joe became a talented sub-editor
after retraining as a journalist, and
made a distinguished contribution as
the former compiler of our Faith matters
section and, up until his retirement,
as letters editor.”
Mr Doran said Joe would “probably
be best remembered as our swimming
correspondent, as the warm tributes
which have been paid to him from
many figures in the sport have demonstrated,”
he said.
“Joe brought complete dedication
and sincerity to every task he approached,
and his passing will be
deeply regretted by all those who had
the privilege of working with him over
the years.”
Requiem Mass will take place tomorrow
at 10am at St Bernard’s Church,
Glengormley with burial afterwards in

By Marie Louise McCrory

[JC]

SUNDAY LIFE'S
BIRTHDAY BASH

Silly old me, I forgot to attend the 25th birthday celebration for Sunday Life last Sunday night ... I miss the secretary Fiona who kept me on time for things and particularly parties with free drink to consume. Sad, for me because I would love to have made friends again with old colleagues who were there with me at the launch of the old girl all those years ago. Anyway, thanks to an email I sent, Martin Lindsay kindly sent me a reply which filled in most of the details ...

Sunday Life held its 25th birthday party, at the weekend. At least 200 guests packed The Empire, in Botanic for the event, which was staged exactly 25 years to the day when the Life was launched, in 1988.

Staff present and past mingled with TV personalities and representatives from the advertising industry.

Launch editor, Ed Curran gave a short speech, which included an Ode to Sunday Life, while current editor, Martin Breen welcomed guests and colleagues alike.

A crew from the UTV programme, The Magazine, which is broadcast at 7.30pm on Friday nights, interviewed all four editors of the paper, Ed, Martin Lindsay (with 13 years service, the longest serving editor of the Life); Jim Flanagan, now editor of the Ballymena Guardian and Martin Breen.

The venue was festooned with Sunday Life balloons and full-size mounted front pages from 1988 to the present. A birthday cake was also cut to mark the occasion, and some revellers got into the spirit of the party by turning up in 1988 garb!

Tim Megarry, from the Hole in the Wall gang acted as MC, cracking one-liners and sending up some of our local politicians.

Among those present, who worked for the paper in 1988 were Dave Culbert, Jim Gracey, Joan Boyd, Sue Corbett, Micheal McGeary, Lena Ferguson, Kevin Magee, Fred Hoare, and Darren Kidd.

Alan Murray, probably the longest serving freelance contributor to SL, was also present, as was UTV's Pamela Ballantine (Pam's People page}, who was also celebrating her birthday, and Ivan Little.

*PICTURES will appear later when I get my hands on them from Press Eye - Blogmaster.

[Smyth]

Mr Chairman: Why don't you activate your spam filter? Than all your spam goes into a different place where you need never see it.

[Chairman]

Chris, you seem to be getting a more exciting brand of Spam than I. And Mitch, I do have a spam filter. Most of it goes into the Spam file, but I empty it every night since i don't want it hogging space on my computer. I get phone calls too. One woke me from my afternoon nap today. What it was for, I'll never know. The gentleman appeared to be speaking from far away in an accent I cannot identify. He called himself Brian as far as I could make out. English did not seem to be his first language. Or possibly even his second. No one in the street I grew up in in the 1940s and '50s had a phone. For a long time the telephone was like a telegram - always the bearer of bad news. The public phone boxes were mainly used for summoning doctors. However as we all finally acquired phones they lost their Hammer Films image. However, I fear that ominous image may be making a comeback. I can almost imagine the late Valentine Dyall, in his Man In Black mode, relating the chilling case of "The Cold Caller".

[RedRick]

"Alan Murray, probably the longest serving freelance contributor to SL". I doubt that very much as I have been and continue to be the Life's freelance angling correspondent since the first Sunday of publication!
P.S. They must have forgotten to invite me to their party!!!

[sm]

Those of you with any kind of link to the Ards Peninsula - family, business or whatever - may be interested in a new book just published. "The Ards in the Sixties" has been compiled by former editor of the Mourne Observor Terence Bowman, along with local author and story-teller Hugh Robinson. Together they have gathered contributions from people in all walks of life who remember what it was like to live and work in the "swinging Sixties". Published by Ballyhay Books, it recalls through the memories of those who lived or worked in the Ards, the entertainment of the day, the sporting events, family businesses, the rise - and fall - of Cyril Lord, Strangford Lough and the harbours of Donaghadee and Portavogie - and much, much more. The book was officially launched at a reception in Newtownards last Friday evening and most of the contributors were there, as well as the editor of the Newtownards Chronicle Mark Bain. One former Chronicle reporter who didn't make it was Margaret Cavan Day who now lives in Canada - known to us in the News Letter where she absconded to in the early 60s - as Maggie
Cavan. The book should be available in most bookshops by now. Nearly 400 pages of fascinating reading. The book is available on amazon.