Wigan Album

Colin another superb set of photographs.I can smell that aroma of paper and ink even now.

Same here Ron. The smell of ink the sound of a printing press in all it's glory and churning out newspapers at the other end...there's nothing like it, a great spectacle.

The three chaps in the background are sat in front of Monotype typesetting machines. I went to the Monotype School in Cursitor St., near Fleet St., London in the early 60s for a six-week course on how to operate these wonderful machines. I was offered a job in Bolton at The Lancashire Typesetting Co. where I was employed in the typesetting of books, wonderful times and very ineresting. I remained there for 16 years before moving on into phototypesetting in the newspaper industry, finally working at the Wigan Observer/Reporter. It was subsequently taken over by Johnston Press who moved all production to Fulwood, nr. Preston. Only three of us from the typesetting department went to Fulwood on a three month trial to see if we could fit in, they would have docked our wages and given us silly working hours, so we three left - myself, Julian Blackledge and Howard Lewis. No one else from all the staff in our department at Wigan ever decided to take up this disastrous move.

This is the composing room on the top floor of the Observer Office in Rowbottom Square around 1963. The worker on the right, Eddie Farrimond, and middle, Mr Potter. Both gentlemen. The place was straight out of a Chgarles Dickens' story.

I believe local newspapers should be printed and published in the town they cover, and from reporters who know the area as their own back yard. The Wigan Observer was full blooded Wigan for almost 150 years, now printed at Fulwood, nr Preston.