It was whilst walking along the promenade at San Sebastian in Spain on the last full day of our holiday that I began to muse about my time working on newspapers and overall how much fun it had been.
Then I was prompted into writing this blog by an article in the New Statesman about the demise of the printed word and newspapers in particular.
I hold myself very fortunate to have been working on newspapers in their hay day or if not actually in their hay day pretty damn close to it.
And I thought about the fun I had working around Norfolk and Suffolk. It was hard work but I remember staff always working as closely knit teams with the express aim of bringing out the best possible daily/weekly printed paper as possible.
As a reporter, as a sub editor and as a sports editor this was always my goal and that goal continues today as I try to bring as much news from my village as I can through my e magazine.
Using that last word (or is it two) just illustrates that I have become a part of the digital revolution. In my case that is out of necessity. Hethersett Herald is only published online due to cost, distribution and time constraints which precludes me from producing a printed edition.
But enough of that, let's go back a few years. I started my reporting life at Lowestoft and loved it, I then moved to Norwich and loved it. Next came Cromer which I loved even more and then Beccles which I loved as much as Cromer. I loved working in all these places.
Now I'm going to mention some names of people I had a great respect for. There were many more but these are the ones that stand out in my memory.
At Lowestoft there was dear old George Smallman who was the kindest and most supportive editor/chief reporter you could possibly have and Glynne Gilliam who was the sub editor who taught me loads. Then there was my mate John whom I went to college with and with whom I shared lodgings for a while. He reads my blogs. There was the charismatic Andy Lemmon and many more. In Norwich my boss was the wonderful art critic Neville Miller who became godfather to one of our son's.
At Cromer there was fellow reporters Norman Hicks who later, like me, went on to work for the Police Service and Malcolm Robertson who always claimed he was Scottish but was born in West Runton. To be fair he was brought up in Scotland and spoke with a Scottish accent.
At Beccles there was my boss Tony Clarke who everybody loved. Tony made every working day fun and taught me so much about how to become part of a community. And those were just a few of the outstanding people I worked with. There were many more too numerous to mention.
I loved working on the local newspapers. Sadly they are now all in decline. One of the oldest newspapers in the country, The Norwich Mercury suddenly stopped production many years ago, wiping out hundreds of years of newspaper history. Our local paper the Wymondham and Attleborough Mercury was also consigned to the pages of newspaper history a short while ago and there you have the reason that I spend hundreds of hours a year putting together Hethersett Herald. Local people deserve local news and as things get more and more regionalised it's important that someone provides that local news. That's what I'm trying to do in Hethersett and that's what the wonderful Wymondham magazine is doing just a couple of miles up the road.
I feel we are arresting the decline of local news output. A few years ago the trend was the other way. Local radio stations were getting down almost to street level and local television was doing the same. A local TV studio opened in the basement of the newspaper office in Norwich but subsequently shut down.
When I joined the world of journalism the printed Media around Norfolk and Suffolk was run by Eastern Counties Newspapers which did what it says on the tin - reported news for the Eastern Counties. When ECN was taken over by Archant it lost quite a bit of its identity. Now it's part of the Newsquest outfit and has lost even more of its identity.
The printing presses in Norwich city centre have long fallen silent, the massive newspaper building in Norwich is now owned by another company and the district newspaper offices like Cromer, Lowestoft and Beccles have shut.
I suppose that's progress but it makes me feel sad and I'm sure this is a topic I will return to
I accept that fewer and fewer people are reading newspapers but I still feel that a large chunk of my past has been destroyed, along with a large chunk of the history of the written word in Norfolk. Thankfully various digital archives are keeping the history of newspapers and magazines alive.
But it's not just newspapers that are suffering. We watch BBC Look East most nights of the week to see what is happening in Norfolk and Suffolk. The problem is this is becoming regionalised as well. A few night's ago we tuned in and the main item was about a public meeting to stop the closure of a leisure complex in Kettering.
Now interesting as this item was, what is happening in Northamptonshire holds no interest to us in Norfolk. Ok I hear you say- on those grounds we would never watch the national news. But at least the national news covers major news items and not something as parochial as a leisure centre in Kettering although I do understand the argument that this leisure centre speaks for and highlights the further erosion of facilities we are suffering/experiencing on almost a daily basis.
We will never return to the newspapers of yesterday. Reading habits and news gathering has changed. On one hand I mourn this but on the other it has helped me to launch my e magazine/newspapers where I have tried to reflect the past while embracing the present and the future.
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There was news yesterday that MP for South Norfolk Richard Bacon will not be standing for re-election. Readers of my e magazine will know my thoughts on Mr Bacon - the same as the thoughts of many others. I have no axe to grind. I do not know Mr Bacon personally and have only met him twice but for me he hasn't fulfilled the function of a constituency MP for a long time and I for one am glad that we will be represented in Parliament by a new face, hopefully with new ideas and somebody willing to properly represent the towns and villages in our area.