To the Editor: (and to the editor of the Saguache Crescent)
I served my apprenticeship as a hand compositor from 1965 and progressed a couple of years later to a 1924 Linotype with a gas-heated melting pot (which proved a problem when Scotland converted to natural, or North Sea gas, in 1970).
My apprenticeship was with the now, sadly defunct, weekly newspaper The Gourock Times, and I moved on in ‘72 to the neighbouring town’s Greenock Telegraph which still is an evening newspaper, although computer set and web printed.
I have happy memories of those hot metal days and reckon it would only take me about 30 minutes to remaster a Lino keyboard – as I never really mastered the querty!
I left the caseroom in 1974 and retrained as a journalist and progressed through the years to managing editor of the Telegraph to be deposed through internal politics around 2002. However, I am still employed there, as a sub-editor, pagemaker and systems trainer to the younger generation (although currently at home recovering from a spinal op).
All that just to say, when you feel you are having a bad day, remember there must be dozens of us old comps who are envious of you. Keep up the good work and I hope there is someone to follow on when you retire.
Best wished from Scotland
Stewart Peterson (61 years)
