Latest figures show that the Eastern Daily Press now only sells 13,059 copies a day which is down 14% on the previous audit. The Norwich Evening News sells just 2,725 which is a 21% drop.
Every time I go past the former press office in Norwich, I feel like crying. I remember what a vibrant place it was to work. The presses were at the back of the building. They then moved to an industrial site in Thorpe St Andrews which is now up for sale and, I believe is empty, and now the presses are somewhere else. I know not where and I care even less. I wonder what the founding fathers of the EDP would make of all this.
Of course we cannot live in the past and things change but the drop has been brutal and very sad. I came across a blog on this subject written a few years ago by Tim Lenton who I worked with and he summed it all up much better then I could. I hope Tim doesn’t mind me quoting him.
“I discovered this week that Archant – formerly Eastern Counties Newspapers, where I worked for 30 years – is closing its print works at Thorpe St Andrew, on the fringe of Norwich. This was a bit of a shock, because I remember it being built. It opened in 1995, which is not that long ago.
“When I joined the Eastern Daily Press in 1972, as a sub-editor working initially between 5pm and 1am, the printing press was still part of Prospect House – the proud city-centre fortress at the top of Rouen Road, itself still only 50 years old and due for demolition soon.
“In 1972 the EDP sold close to 100,000 copies a day, covering Norfolk and bits of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. We had three editions: 1st, which covered King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, 2nd, which covered South Norfolk and North Suffolk, and 3rd, which covered Norwich and North Norfolk. This was a practical thing, governed by how long it took van drivers to deliver the papers. Obviously, we could sometimes get later stories into the 3rd edition, and subs on the late shift, ending at 4am, changed several pages.”
I think Tim’s piece gives a really good flavour of how things once were. Now most people I suspect pick up their news in bite sized chunks online along with their false and inaccurate news. How things have changed.
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I have a strong idea that one of my ancestors who was definitely Scottish may have been one of the famed “herring girls” who came down along the East Coast to gut herrings after the catch was brought ashore.
My particular ancestor was called MacIver before she married into our family and it is likely that she was a Herring Girl in Great Yarmouth.
Which takes me nicely onto the new Herring Bridge at Great Yarmouth. This is a new bridge that spans the River Yare and provides an additional crossing of the river between Yarmouth and Gorleston. It was officially opened on February 1st amongst considerable fanfare and trumpeting. It broke down within days. It has now broken down three times since it opened. Even the opening was delayed. Now it’s shut until further notice whilst they try to sort out what’s wrong with it.
I was listening to the news bulletin on Radio Norfolk with somebody being interviewed (I know not who). He said that the aim was for engineers to work on the bridge to ensure it “was far more reliable, far more often.” Reliable from day one might have been a good starting point. The comment suggests that you cannot expect it to work all the time – just more often.
Apparently two days after it was opened it hit a technical problem leading to the local council issuing an apology after bridge operators were heard swearing. I bet they were.
• * *
I mentioned recently that I have been reading “Notebook” by Tom Cox which I finished yesterday. In one of his short pieces, he talks about the difference between short term and long term memory and to me there’s a great difference. Short term memories deal with specifics like where I had lunch yesterday and what I did last Saturday afternoon whereas long term deals in generalities – what was on television over months, what I had regularly for lunch, places I went on a regular basis.
But of course, as we move through life things ger erased from the memory. But not for me as I have my diary to look back on. I recently re-read a passage of my working life and could remember little of what I read. People who don’t keep diaries will have lost these memories forever. Those of us that keep diaries can relive them even if we don’t actually remember them.
“Did I really do that job?”
So when my friend and regular columnist in my Hethersett Herald, John Head sent me a load of photographs for the coming edition he said that I was photographed during a 2000 walk around the fields of Hethersett.
I looked at the photos and indeed there I was. But I had no memory of the event which ended up with refreshments at a private home owned by Hugh and Vic Redington. I had somehow erased that walk from my memory.
But having my diary, I was able to find out that yes we did go on that walk and yes it was me in the photographs and not a doppelganger. Yes, I did walk round the fields and yes we did have refreshments at the end. And yes I do have that memory written down even if I still can’t recall it! That’s the power and the importance of diaries – every day for over 50 years documented.