Mals Memories (From Penarth Times)

Mals Memories

DO you remember typewriters?

It is hard to believe that computers are a comparatively new phenomena, and it is not so long ago that typewriters ruled the roost in offices up and down the land.

Certainly when I started as a junior reporter the typewriter was an essential piece of equipment that had to be mastered as a basic requirement of the job.

There was no out-and-out rule regarding typing speeds, and most of us adopted the one-fingered hunt and stab technique.

But one thing that was required was accuracy.

If your copy was not properly presented it was swiftly thrown back at you to do again.

Even if the Chief Sub had an off day and allowed sloppy copy to creep through it would not get far.

In those days printers enjoyed a dominant position in newspaper offices, and the linotype operators who set the lines of text would simply refuse to work with any copy that was not neat and tidy and supplied to them on the correct sized paper.

It was computers that gave newspaper proprietors the chance to end the dominance of the print unions nationally, although not without a bitter struggle.

But eventually single keying, as it is known, became the norm, which meant that editorial staff were solely responsible for inputting the copy into computers, and ultimately for making up pages on screen.

But I will let you into a secret.

Most journalists, particularly the old-timers, were terrified of those early computers, and their typewriters had to be virtually prised away from them.

They would never admit it now, of course, and no-one would want to return to those primitive machines.

Although I do keep mine in the attic just in case!

* Malcolm Davies is a former editor of the Penarth Times. Mal's Memories are on the Penarth Times site www.thisispenarth.co.uk