James Lees in Conversation with Keith Webster

James Melvin Lees, a native of Stonehaven, is about to celebrate his 100th birthday. He grew up in Stonehaven but had to move to Aberdeen to pursue his career as a journalist. He worked for the Aberdeen Evening Express and had a successful career in the newspaper industry. James recalls his childhood, his father's death when he was young, and his education at Fetteresso Primary School. He also discusses the changes in education, such as the use of slate pencils and mental arithmetic. Despite some health issues, James remains active and maintains his independent living in a care home. Well, on the line, I've got Keith Webster, and I know that Keith's got something rather special for us today. Good morning to you, first thing, Keith. Good morning to you, Ian. Thank you for that. If indeed it can be good, with all this horrible snow lying around. Anyway, we do have some cheerful news to talk about today, because Stonehaven is about to find itself with another native of the town, celebrating his 100th birthday. He'll be one of many over the years who've reached their centenary, and like so many of them, this one, too, had to leave his hometown to make his way in the world. In this case, though, it wasn't foreign lands that claimed and kept him. It was Aberdeen, the Granite City, a mere 15 miles to the north of the Merse capital, the place where he made his name as a respected journalist, and where he returned many years later as news editor of the Aberdeen Evening Express. The man I speak of is James Melville Weeds, who was born on the 12th of March, 1923, in the home of his grandmother, at 21 Slug Road, Stonehaven, in a house that is there to this day. His mother, the former Isabella Wells, and his father, Andrew Lees, along with his sister, Nellie, went to live in Victoria Road, Aberdeen, close to the huge fish market where Andrew worked, latterly as a fish buyer. Sadly, as was all too common in those days, Andrew Lees died of pneumonia on New Year's Day, 1927, at the age of 32. James was not yet four years old when he learned of his dad's death, and the now-depleted family, mum, Isabella, preschool Jimmy, and baby Nellie, who was barely two years old, returned to 21 Slug Road, where the children grew up. Sadly, Nellie died in 1991, at the age of 66. For Jimmy, though, education meant Fetteresso Primary School, followed by the Mackay Academy. In 1939, his newspaper career began, as did mine, as it happens, and so many others, only much later, of course, on the Mearns Leader. After war service and the Gordon Highlanders on Reeney, Jimmy returned to Stonehaven, only this time he joined the Aberdeen office of the Glasgow Herald, the Glasgow Evening Times, and the now-defunct Bulletin. Yet there's an interesting sidelight here. Jimmy's boss in Aberdeen was George MacDonald Senior, who was the Herald and Times man in the North East for more than 14 years. He was to mentor many youngsters, including me. I had followed in Jimmy's footsteps from the Mearns Leader to the Herald and Times before moving off to other areas. George MacDonald was the closest friend of Leslie Mitchell, another Mearns man in the Aberdeen newspaper scene, who went on to worldwide fame as the brilliant author Lewis Grassock Gibbon. Jimmy was in his late thirties when he married Phyllis, his beloved pal from primary school days, and they moved to their new home in Aberdeen. Now aged 99 and about to hit the 100 milestone this coming Sunday, Jimmy is still bright and able to get about, a little more slowly than before, but with a memory scarcely dimmed by the years. His recall remains clear, sharp, and accurate, as you'll hear now from these excerpts of the talk Jimmy and I had in his flat in an Aberdeen care home. Over two days our discussion ranged across the friends, acquaintances, and experiences of a century of living. His beloved Phyllis died some years ago, and a couple of health issues, not least a hip broken by a fall in his home, prompted his move to the care home where he is now. There he maintains his independent living, but with support should it ever become necessary. This then is the story of James Melvin Lees, proud native of Stonehaven, told in his own words. My name is James Lees. I was born at 21 Slough Road, Stonehaven on March 12, 1923. My sister Nellie was born in October 1924. I lived in, my father was a fish worker, later a buyer at Aberdeen Fish Market. My mother was a housewife. When my father became ill, we lived in Victoria Road when my father became ill, and we returned to Stonehaven to live with my grandmother, my mother's mother. It was there that my father died on January 1, 1927, aged 32. I recall being out in the window, in a pavement outside the window, the bedroom window where he died, and a cousin said to me, your father has died. The full significance of that didn't really hit me until later. I was a few weeks short of my fourth birthday, my sister was two, and we continued to live in Stonehaven. My mother had to go to work while my granny looked after us. I remember him vaguely standing in the garden at the Slough Road. For the time of your dad's funeral? No, no, no, I mean, when he was ill, I remember him standing at the, there was a quarter of an acre of garden outside my granny's house, that's where her father had a market garden, and I remember him standing outside in the garden while I played with another chap and maybe my sister, you know. My mother worked in Finlay's Dairy, which was a branch of the main office in Aberdeen, and later, when I was older, I went, I delivered milk. Later, the Finlay's Dairy went bust, and my mother took over the small dairy, and she worked in it until the mid-1950s, when she retired. My sister also helped my mother in the dairy. She built a wee place at the bottom of the garden where she could wash the bottles and do some, sell some of them, a very small operation. Anyway, in those days, it was a horse and cart operation. And I remember being in the army, leading in the Daily Express, I think it was, that there had been an incident where the cart had overturned into the harbour. So, nothing I could do, I was in the army in Germany. So that was, well, when I left school, I hadn't thought I might get in, follow a career in the real world, following the advice of this man who was, who'd lodged with my granny, but there was no vacancies then. So I, there was a notice appeared in the Leader Senior looking for a junior reporter. So I joined there, and that was the start of my newspaper career. What about your primary school? Which primary school did you attend in Stonehaven? I went to Fetterses School, which is now a community centre. And the playground has probably got the best view of any playground in the area. You're overlooking the North Sea when you're in the upper playground. I can still remember all the teachers there. The headmaster was Mr. Gall. One thing I remember, we'd a visit from, one day, from Jack Hobbs, the English cricketer. Mr. Gall's brother apparently had some connection with Surrey Cricket Club, and Hobbs played for Surrey. I can't think of any other. I think one time the school was slightly damaged by lightning. I remember seeing a picture of the janitor, Bob Haddon, attending to this after he'd arrived in the morning. At the school, the boys played a game called Cocky Roozer, whereby you all stood up at one side, and there was one boy in the middle shouting out your name. And if he caught you, you stopped and shouted for the next boy to come out. If you succeeded in passing, this was known as a bull rush. I don't know if it's played today. It's the only school I've heard of this. I can remember the second primary class. The first one was Miss Stephen, the second one was Miss Cameron. When we left the class, the boys all had to salute, and the girls had to bow their heads once a week as we went out. I don't think you get that today. Was it quite hard discipline? No, the teacher before Mr. Gall in the last class, the control class we called it, the teacher before that was Miss Chalmers, and she was the one teacher which she was very strict. To be honest, I was quite afraid of Miss Chalmers. She was, as I say, very strict indeed. And the actual lessons themselves, I mean, my own memories of course are of, well, in my case it was post-World War II, but I still have memories of learning to write on a slate with a slate pencil, and sitting there chanting the multiplication tables every morning, because that's how they got them into your head. I would imagine it was pretty much the same for yourselves. Well, yes, I started off in the primary with slate pencils. By the time you reach the final class, I mean, you're well versed in mental arithmetic, whatever we pronounce it nowadays. You know, 12 times 12 divided by 2, add 20, divide 4, divide by 2. Nowadays people get calculators. And in the old days in the Lake of the North Cope, the old Northern Cope, when you went in for any messages, the messages would be in front, and the man would calculate one 11th time, plus 10p, plus 2 shillings, plus, calculate it in his head. Nowadays, of course, it's a full different system. There must have been some concentration on English as well. Obviously you'd have been learning, as I recall, things like grammar and spelling and punctuation, and analysing sentences. I mean, you certainly got, in primary school, spelling. I mean, it was one of the things that you, it just came so natural to you. I mean, you heard it so much, like the tables. Today you'll find that, I don't know if spelling is so important now, it's expression, I mean. I remember seeing a government principal spelt I-P-A-L, even it should be I-P-A-L. I thought, well, you get people misspelling that word, but, and receive. I began to think it was I-E instead of E-I. When the control exam, as you call it, we ended up hearing it as the 11+, when it came round, there was quite a lot of strain and pressure, as I recall, on pupils, because you really were expected to do well and to win a place in a senior secondary, and that's where the pressure was on. If you weren't going to pass the 11+, then it was a junior secondary, and it was a kind of an apprenticeship route you were looking at. But there was a lot of pressure at home and a lot of pressure at school to get into that senior secondary stream. Were you the same at Feth-i-Issar? Yes, I mean, we, most of the pupils went from Feth-i-Issar to Mackays. There certainly was a certain pressure on you, what we called the control examination, to pass that examination. It was not a very important examination for you. I mean, when you went up to Mackay then, you certainly had exams there, but this one was, as I say, you were 12 or 13 then, and it was an important examination to pass. What did sport consist of then for you, Jimmy? I mean, you went on, you were a golfer and you were a bowler, but as a youngster, what kind of sports did you do? Well, there was no sports day, I mean, you had to go to Mackay Academy when you, when you, it was a half day for sport. And the first rector of Mackay Academy was a Dr William Ruddick, known to his pupils, this Billy, quite a famous figure, and he was decorated during the First World War. And a former pupil, a good many years older than me, told me they were sort of standing, shivering in the pavilion, hoping the rain would go off, and Billy came up and said, don't dig it out, the rain won't go through your skin, boy. Yes, I can remember something similar. We didn't play football at my secondary school, but we did have to play rugby. I never got into, I did play once for the cricket team, but I never got further than the team would be picked from, from the junior team. Which particular subjects were yours at the Mackay Academy? Well, I was, actually I was better at science, maths and bookkeeping. Yeah, I mean, I was better at those subjects, but English, I was okay, you know, I mean, there was no standing English pupil, but of course, I mean, these subjects, well, I was intent on following, because I thought maybe get into the administrative post, but that didn't arise, so the leader post, and I'm quite happy to have followed that course. You know, the man's leader, of course, was even then quite an old weekly local newspaper. In the way that local communities did have their own weekly papers, and folk did buy them, they identified with them. When you joined the man's leader, what did the staff consist of at the time? Well, when I joined, the staff consisted of the editor, and George Christie, who did the ads, and they had an officer, Lawrence Kirk. Who was the editor of the man's leader? Frank Cruden. Frank Cruden, he was a Perthshire man, and when he was called up, he was succeeded by Philip Patterson, who I think came from the Kincardineshire Observer at Lawrence Kirk. Philip was very keen to join the RAF, and he volunteered in 1940, and I was left as the sole editorial representative aged 17 in the leader. So I was plunged into doing various jobs. I used to keep in contact, Philip went out to the training in California, and I used to get letters from him saying they'd been entertained by film stars. He qualified as a sergeant pilot, and I heard during my own army service that he'd been killed. No, it was after I finished the army that I learned he'd been killed, and I presumed he'd been killed in a bombing in Germany. Anyway, I was telling my nephew Andrew about Philip, and he discovered that he'd been killed in a training flight at RAF Kinloss, and further, I discovered that Andrew did, that his son Philip, Philip, before Patterson married, and I don't know his wife, knew his wife at all, but his son Philip was born six months after he was killed. And some years ago, Philip's son and his two sons made a journey to the spot where Philip Patterson's plane had crashed in the Cairngorms, and they were led there by somebody, a guide who knew the area, and they had pictures of the crash there. What was a typical day at work? When you just started, you were the laddie and the men's leader, you were learning, so what would have been a typical day for you? Well, you may read paragraphs about this, that and the next thing. As well as your editorial duties, on a Friday you had to deliver voucher copies of the leader to all the advertisers. At that stage, when Philip Patterson left to join the RAF, Frank Cruden's wife, Sis Cruden, joined as George Christie, but had also gone and joined the army by that time, and Frank Cruden's wife, Sis, joined as the men's leader, to collect the ads and do general office work. So you were, what, 17 years old and basically left in charge of the newspaper? I remember Harry Dunnis saying that, you're the editor, this is me? Well again, you know, it wasn't without precedent. You will recall our mutual old friend and colleague, Jack Webster, and Jack, of course, who came from Maud, did his first real training in newspapers on the turf advertiser, and because of war service for staff, he found himself as a 16 year old editing the paper. Something similar was happening at the men's leader at that time. But at that point, the men's leader was printed in Aberdeen, was it? Yes. Because it belonged to the Maud Monroes, obviously, at that stage, before it became owned by the chap Robertson who had it when I worked there. When I was so-called editor of the leader, I used to go in on a Thursday morning and read the proofs. And those days there were some lunches for like, for war efforts, you know, Spitfire funder, and there was a lunch one, must have been a Wednesday, might have been a Thursday, Thursday, where you went down and get a few words from the speaker, and one day I went down, I forget what, it was the farmers, and the chairman, the speaker at least, collapsed and died. And, you know, somebody said, oh he's dead, now I'm going to take his word. Anyway, I saw a doctor, the provost, Dr Charles Burdens, and she said, yes, the man's dead. So I phoned quickly the leader and said, well, we had a paragraph you'd like to see that changes that the man has died. So that was that was one of the That was really a shocker. I was very conscious of what, nowadays it wouldn't happen, but there was a lady, you know, publishing a picture of her to the Haven couple, and the lady was rather big, and they thought, no, was she pregnant? And of course I was sent down to the house, I got a phone call, would you please go down to that man's house and ask if it's ok if we use her picture, and no reason given, oh yes, that's so. So the picture was used. And one occasion the leader, you know, people look at the dates to get the date of the paper, and one occasion we published the wrong date. I don't know how that happened, but it did. Things like the women's guild meetings. Yeah, I used to go to the women's guild. I don't think I did so much to the Haven Town Council. Don't know Willie Goodfellow who was a local, did a lot of local papers. He worked in the Evening Express. He did that. Who was your photographer for the leader of the town at that time? George Christie did pictures before he was called up, and Bonacourt of course did a couple of photographers. There was one, not the elderly, but older than the rest, a chap called Bob Dugan who had an excellent picture, and I used to suggest that he might come out and dig. There was a chap called Charlie Hunter who was about 80, and he was in the Home Guard, and I suggested this would be a good picture, and he would take a picture of that. There was maybe an exercise somewhere in the Home Guard, and I would suggest that. There was also a lot of pictures taken by a man called Ling Pfeiffer. You know, in the south part of the county. So we were covered for pictures. There was one picture in the front. One of my many duties as a leader was to report to football matches. It was a mid-week match, and they got a new player, and I had to hand the copy into a chap who was a cop, and the leader stayed with him. He was also the secretary of the Stoneman Football Club, and he'd signed this player, and I said in the report that he hadn't had much of a game. A bit like every football team today. He changed that to saying he had a quiet debut. So that was censorship at the best possible time, you know. You were talking about advertising being on a Friday, and when I was there in the early 60s, the paper actually printed in Montrose, in the Montrose Review building, on a Thursday, and it came up by car, and the entire office, everybody in the office, and there was Mrs Caird in the front office, Charlie George, the editor, Paddy Christie, the senior reporter, and myself, and we had to stand there in the front office, wrapping copies of the leader in pre-printed wrappers to go abroad. These were the ones that went on to, well, of course in the old days they were the colonies, and then it became the Commonwealth, but of course, the folks who were getting these were very often the children of people who had emigrated from Stoneman, and gone to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong was another place, there were lots Singapore, Malaya, and we had probably more copies going abroad than we sold at all. But it was, advertising day was Tuesday, and I had to go around on a Tuesday afternoon with a folder and go to places like John Emsley, the electrician, Hugh Ramsey, the draper, and of course the garages, Stonehaven Motors and so on, and pick up all the advertisements that they wanted in that week's paper. Was that the sort of thing that the trainer was getting as little? Yeah, after George Christie left, I also had to collect ads from the paper. That was before Mrs Gruden came. You know, I went round, and most of them were repeat ads. And everything done on foot as well. Pardon? Everything was done on foot, you walked everywhere. Oh yes, yes, yeah. Friday afternoons, when of course the paper was gone on a Thursday, so Friday was a different day. And very often, I had to go out to Bunkery, because I lived there indeed, I would go out to Bunkery on Friday, and I'd walk round all the contracts, picking up the local stuff for the next week's paper. But sometimes, it was a case of go to Stonehaven in the morning, take the bus to Cove, which of course was in Kincardenshire at that stage, and get what was going on in Cove. Luckily for me, the village grocer in Cove, John Thompson, was a contemporary of my father, and they had worked together in the grocery business of the Northern Co-operative Society, many, many, many years before. And of course, as the local shop, John Thompson and his wife, they knew everything that was going on, so I just had one stop to make really, when I got to Cove, and fathers got home early on a Friday afternoon, as a result, not very often. But it was a question of using buses, I mean, there were no cars available, and if you were going to Auchinblade, or Drumlithie, or Lawrence Kirk, it was on the bus, that's how you got there. Yeah, well I never went to, the only thing I recall going out of this was, the manager of the cinema at one time was a bloke called Sandy Matthews, and he had been a sub-editor, I don't know why he did that. He went back to work for the Edinburgh Evening News, and one day he phoned up and said there had been a tragedy in Wormmouth and Fife, and the person involved had some connection with Gatherland. When I go collect a picture from there, so I used to cycle down to Gatherland, that was my mode of transport. That was your foreign job for the year. Yeah. Well the only time I ever used a bus was the time I was collecting ads was at Lawrence Kirk, I used the train, well sorry, I used the bus, no, I used the train to go to Lawrence Kirk, and I used the bus to go to Bervie for the Town Council meeting, and that was this, I never went to Banquery. I don't think we did any ads from Banquery, it was no decent, back in those days. One or two, I recall one or two solicitor's offices would maybe place a small advertisement in the leader, but that was about the length of it. None of the big traders I feel like, the shops in Banquery did that, not in those days anyway. And of course they didn't have a paper then, it was many, many years before the D-side paper appeared on the scene to kind of fill that gap. You're a young chap, some would say still a boy, but really a young man in those days. You're working at the minimums leader in Stonehaven and of course up in the Everdeen office as well, because that's where the paper printed then. Living in Stonehaven, what was social life like for a young person like yourself? Well my social life was during the war, until I was called up in 1942. The social life actually was going to the Saturday night dances in the town hall. And I recall one Saturday buying a sporting post which is no longer printed. It also carried the news against the Green Final. It was solely football and the front page news that evening about the paper was that the battleship HMS Hood had been sunk. But I mean those were it was blackout conditions then. Social life well for the young folk was mostly I suppose the older people went to bar, I didn't drink then. Well I was away in 1942, I was in battle in the 46, 47. How did the were you actually conscripted then? Was it National Service? I was conscripted I joined the army, the Gordon Henders in February 12th 1942 and in those days there were people being taken from various regiments to be trained as radar mechanics and I was one of the people who went off in that course and I eventually landed up in RIMI as a radar mechanic. Mr. Cudden who was also a radar mechanic he said he used a hammer to cut any defense. That was that was the heaven life as I knew it. When I come home and leave say in the summer before I went overseas go to the pool there's few people that I knew then most of my pals were all away, the people that I knew from holiday times they too were away. The town was quite busy because there used to be troops troops there. Were they billeted in Stonhaven or were they under canvass in one of the towns? They were billeted in the was used I think as a billeting point for them. My mother and sister in McDonagh there were two who used to come to the house. One of them used to do some of McDonagh's house work. But it was as I say I was only in 42 by the time I came back it was you know permanently I was home and leave until the time I went overseas. The quite strange the lady who ran the Stonhaven Comfort Fund was a Mrs Eve Hobbs and she was, her husband owned Glen Union Distillery I think he was Canadian or something like that I think I read about her after the war in Verloche Castle I don't know if she was a county councillor anyway our convoy moved from Bowal near Nottingham down to the south coast and we stopped at a place called Lutterworth and lo and behold we went into the hall and they were serving tea and words to the troops and there was Mrs Hobbs and that was quite a surprise people used to meet. So you did your training obviously in the UK Yeah. but you were transferred across to Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers When was it that you actually went overseas? We were late in going over to France we went over in It was August before we went over We were late in going over We were near a place called Le Pew We were setting up camp there and a lady approached and a Liverpool Irishman said to his best friends Good morning Good morning boys I'm from Brighton and from there we ended up when the war was over I actually saw the sign saying we're moving convoy one day I don't know where we're going St Valery had been liberated by the Highland Division Their predecessors had been captured there in St Valery in June 1940 Including the Gordon Islanders Yeah, the whole division and some years when I was on holiday in France I decided to visit St Valery and I stood in the square there of the General Fortune who commanded the division talking to Robel and apparently, this is what I read in a book that Robel had invited the General to lunch with him and his staff but he declined and spent the meal time with his officers but when I was in the army we spent quite a lot of time our unit on the outskirts of Dunkirk there was a German garrison there just like the one in Tobruk who did nothing, they were just there and we were just a few miles from them and after the war I went to the home of General Wimberley who commanded the Highland Division at the Battle of El Alamein and the night before he said when I phoned him up I can give you half an hour, I said oh that's ok I ended up, his wife invited Phyllis who was outside, my wife was outside she was doing embroidery and reading and doing crosswords I said I won't be long Mrs. Wimberley invited Phyllis and I for lunch with her and the General so we had lunch with General Wimberley who actually, this was in September 1982 that I interviewed him I think he died in August the following year he was in his 80's he was in the afternoon he was reading off his notes to me in the afternoon he said I'll just go to rest that's what I've been reading out to you and anyway a bit he hadn't read out was the fact that an officer who had some association with the Fascist Union before the outbreak of war had gone missing on the eve of the Battle of the El Alamein and General Wimberley was I think he was concerned about this because he consulted Sir Oliver Lees who was the man next under Montgomery about this Montgomery was asleep in his caravan and Lees said no no go and disturb Montgomery and nothing happened it was just another incident years later I got in touch with General Wimberley's son Major Wimberley to see if I could get who this person was I know that General Wimberley didn't want this obviously didn't want this because there was regiments involved and the next thing and I actually got in touch with Edinburgh National Library but no those things most frequently I don't know who he was probably just killed in a patrol or something like that While you were with the Army I heard that you were actually in Germany at some point were you stationed there? Yes we were in a place called Sarstedt and the unit broke up I was sent of course down to Brussels for a good week in Brussels and ended up in the office of a signals unit just doing office work until it kept closed and mobilised and then demobbed back to Stonehaven again and clearly you had decided you were going to stick with the newspaper business for a career by that time but you were still obviously a young single chap what was the next step then for your career? How did you move from the Nerns leader? I had an interview with a chap called William and Rosamond Roper he said what was your salary before you left with the Army and I said £2, it was actually £35 he said I'll double it I said oh well more than that give me another £10, £4.10 by the time I paid my bus fare and my dings I was with Harold George MacDonald's assistant for a bit from the February to the October to the April the next year which year was that? 1948 I joined the journals and I retired in June 1982, 34 years Before that then you were working with the Glasgow Herald, Glasgow Evening Times and the Bulletin in their Aberdeen office and the chief reporter at that time was George MacDonald Sr and at that point it's worth mentioning that was a newspaper family I mean old George MacDonald's brother Norman became the sports editor of the press his son George succeeded George Sr in the Glasgow Herald office in Aberdeen I joined the Glasgow Herald in 1964 in the Aberdeen office straight from the mayor's leader and that was with George Sr and then worked with George MacDonald Jr for many years after that a pair of us going but you moved on from that particular you went to Aberdeen journals as you said and were you at that time working for both papers or just for one of them? Both So it was a week of the Press and Journal There was a shift system 1 month 96, 1 month 211 1 month 10.30, 7.30 when you could be moved to a 9 o'clock shift or to a late shift actually I didn't have a car and I got away to get the bus at 10.30 instead of 11 So you were at the journals then you would have been in Broad Street when you were still in Stonehaven before you moved and possibly even still at school there are many famous sons of that town indeed but of course one of them in the literary sense was Leslie Mitchell who became the writer of Lewis Grassock Gibbon were you as a school pupil say at the Mackay were you particularly aware of him and of his work? No. The Man's Leader actually published one of his I think the monocle and the Man's Leader published one of his books serialised it, I think because of his friendship with Cuthbert Graham who was working at the Bonner Corner in those days and then went to become Preacher of Editor of the Press and Journal Dr. Cuthbert Graham was a great local historian he was an academic as much as a working lady in fact of course Leslie Mitchell was a great pal of George MacDonald Senior with whom you worked and indeed lodged with George's widowed mother in the centre of Aberdeen for quite a long time before he moved off south but you never met him, you didn't have a lot to do with his works at all? No, I mean I just learned about him later and there were cousins who lived near in Arbuthnot he wasn't highly thought of in Arbuthnot I'm afraid he trotted too many toes too many sensitivities despite the fact that his brilliant writing wonderful stuff So you're at the Evening Express and the Press and Journal what was a typical working day then, what sort of thing would you have been doing? Well you come in the morning and you come up to the lectern and you saw maybe you're going to Sheriff Court or you're maybe doing a committee meeting you know various jobs that arise and I seem to be getting enough of the weather if it was bad, which wasn't a popular job or a funeral in those days and one day I'm looking to the lectern and I say another funeral, why don't I always get a funeral and the voice behind me said take your memorable face on so just like Gregor it was to make fun The football man at the evening table So I remember doing the funeral of I took it, yeah the funeral of Lady MacRobert and Peter Craighead who was chief reporter said look pretend all details planes, she lost three sons either to an accident or an air accident pretend about a bit of atmosphere about planes dipping over the Vale of Cromar and took me to this coffin made from wood in a state names of all the mourners, Paul Benner which I did, of course Peter was the correspondent for the Times Anyway, I'm working away on a Saturday night you know ready for my next job Jimmy Grant comes in, he was editor and gets my copy, says what are you trying to do fill the Press and Journal on your own very blunt so so there's many jobs well of course I was ahead of time the biggest post war story of course was Piper Hopper without a doubt strange, after that Ted Stackin who started an oil magazine asked Van you come down sometimes and do things for him, which I did, he said look I'm going away for the weekend, you come down and sort of look after the shop this weekend, I said alright and this is the day that Piper Hopper tragedy Ted came down and I said well there's nothing I can do because he was busy and that's where I left but after I left I did freelance work oil exercises and things like that How many years of the Aberdeen Journals did you have? 34 Now there was a kind of a progression wasn't there? Which position did you occupy in the newsroom when you retired? I was news editor for, after Robert McKinnon I was news editor for 7 years from 1974 to 1982 So in fact you had gone from a pretty junior reporter when you joined the paper up to news editor, which of course is the person who controls the activity of all the folk in the newsroom, decides who's going where and to which job and so on and generally would provide a, not just a very powerful position of assisting and helping to train others and give experience to others coming up It's a job that can't really be done without the background of being a general news reporter which is what you were, you weren't a specialist in any particular field No, no, no, there were two specialists in those days, the agriculture editor and the fishing man who were famous names Alec Munro was the agricultural editor and of course the fishing man was Alec Dempster before Jim Kinnair took over from him I can tell two stories on both Alec was not a drinker but he got into this, he covered the various agricultural shows and went into the secretary's tent to get a to speak to him and shortly afterwards an announcement comes over the tannoy, well Mr Munro the present general, please return to secretary's office immediately and Alec's famous story in those days it was called Turing Station you had to check up on the railway and what was happening at the harbour and one day Alec's down there and he's speaking to the station master and the train comes in and off steps Mrs Simpson and Alec saw two detectives obviously with Mrs Simpson and he said to the station master how was the king this morning and the king was waiting in a car in the car park so Alec came back and of course at that time there was a silence in British newspapers about the romance, although Americans were full of it so Alec wrote this story and on reticent to publish it had been Mr Veitch in those days was the editor-in-chief and manager-director so Alec's paragraph appeared in the P&J and even expressed about Mrs Simpson arriving in Aberdeen and Alec how he'd had this and I don't know there was a big loud bubble that night about disappearing of course that was the day that the king opened opened Aberdeen Royal Infirmary Right, now then, yes we've got King Edward VIII opening Aberdeen Royal Infirmary was Mrs Simpson here at the time? Yes she was up in Balmoral by that time she'd come up that day actually I wrote a gossip call for the Evening Express about this I got a call from somebody about they were doing interviews with various people Ninian Reid is that the name? No he was doing interviews with various people and I suggested Alec that he'd interviewed Alec and I wrote a paragraph about Alec and Mrs Simpson that appeared in the P&J about him meeting Mrs well Mrs Simpson coming off the train This was the start of the straws in the wind before the real thing came about He pulled the plug on it didn't he? I spoke with him being in Slug Road being born in Slug Road and during my army service I asked a fellow soldier if he'd post a letter to my mother I gave him it and he looked at it and he said Slug Road? That must be a tough part of town you come from I said oh it's the name of the north end of the town on my 4500 and I said there's probably a dozen to twenty houses in Slug Road quite a long road goes on to Bankly and Royal Deeside and then from Bankly on to Bob Morrill He wasn't impressed with my explanation and we agreed that there might be some decent people living in Slug Road Slug Road according to my proper definition is this you consulting a gazetteer? A Scottish one am I Slug Road arose through a narrow defile between two hills but it doesn't it's not a more slowness of names Slug Road No it certainly isn't and I never did know what it meant That would be a tough spot you see I think he thought it was gorvles or Go that's the last thing it was I used to be sometimes sent up to Inverness and relieved duties and I was up there One winter time when the Glasgow Herald man in Inverness those days was Mike Allen there and he said oh there's been a tragedy involving air people from Kinloss or whoever and Ben said you want to go down so I phoned the office and said oh yes go down and actually it was four men and women those days that are dead there and I wasn't equipped for I'd just got up with winter clothing but not for standing out so after that I spent the next fortnight in my bed at home with near pneumonia but I mean the A lot of those stories in those days where you had mountain rescue teams out in the Cairngorms obviously out there but of course things like the lifeboats then having to go out often the trawlers or often the freighters that got into trouble they were out for days at a time there were no helicopters to help out then it was the lifeboat men and it was the mountain rescue folk who were out doing that job with no real support from helicopters at all No I wasn't involved with any lifeboats I can't recall any The Garvey Trail certainly I remember It was very shocking of course for the folk in the area especially the Stonehaven connection which was far too I mean there was made up stories I mean in the days of the standing of a trawler the story of the standing of a trawler and the crewman asked did the skipper tell you to follow the course of east north east oh I thought he said east I thought he said east north street but that's not true There were quite a lot of boats doing this at the time You were speaking about court cases I remember when there would be any court and a solicitor in front of me J.D. McCombie this chap was up for poaching it was a minor charge and he was making an eloquent query there had never been a charge like this before he was up for murder in the army or killed We had some very colourful courts Do you remember the procurator fiscal at Stonehaven one Mr. William B. Agnew Yes never will My God didn't he make our lives miserable some days I'll never ever forget He had his fleet of dinky cars and vehicles on the table where the fiscal sat at the front of the court and he used to use these things to demonstrate what happened and he used to crash them together and it drives the sheriffs mad because these things were flying all over the court I remember one time I was very embarrassed about a case a man had been shouting and swearing and she said to Mr. Agnew he used very bad words but let's hear those words and loud as a jury can with a jury case poor old lady it was effing insane I do recall one of the incidents at the start some of them were appearing Stonehaven Sheriff Court and a whole bunch of us from national papers were down there and W.B. Agnew was very rude as he saw us coming up the stairs and at the end of that initial hearing which is simply someone agreeing and that's their address and yes that's what they're charged with there was no proceeding ever went beyond that there was later appearances to deal with that and W.B. Agnew refused to give the basic information that always was given for those cases well one or two of the lads remonstrated with him but in fact David King from Evie Express went downstairs and he called a very very powerful person in the legal establishment in Scotland a person called the Crown Agent who's very responsible for leadership and management and general running of the court system in Scotland and it was a man named Stanley Bowen and he said to David King Mr. King go back into the courthouse and your colleagues go to the Procurator Fiscal's office and I think you will find he will help you and we did and he helps alright he was standing at the door of his office with a statement all ready to read out which is all we would ever have had anyway but Stanley Bowen had been on from Edinburgh saying me Chief you're not do it so I think there would have been a few bits of skin and hair flying he was a strange guy really in many ways Aye William Magnew his daughter actually did illustrations for F.P. Magnew and she was a nice lassie forget her name now At this point you're at Aberdeen Journals and of course one of your colleagues there was a reporter called Douglas Pratt who ended up in fact as the beat man if you like for North Angus and Mearns Doug covered North Angus and Mearns for the P&J when it started in addition for that area Going way back now, late 63 wasn't it the Queen Mum was in Stonehaven on a really wild awful day to reopen the ancient building the toll booth down at the harbour I remember terrible rain and wind were you there among the crowd I was I can't remember the weather to be quite honest but I was there and I saw Tom Christie who was the Provost at the time and as you say Douglas was there reporting for the P&J Douglas actually his job was just going around the south of the county and into Angus to get stories and the courier likewise was a reporter who did the same for the courier Bill Bradford and Laurie Rogers they were the staff men at Montrose I don't know who it was somebody from the courier was also engaged in trying to get off diary stories that was the hope pretty well Douglas was in that the whole time When I was still very young he didn't have a driving licence Doug Pratt used to horn me around in his car very often I'd be going home to Aberdeen just at the same time he was and he would take me home then He was a very very good hand Doug Pratt he really knew his beat, he got to know the folk, he was well liked He was a respected reporter of what went on again the kind of old fashioned reporting that we had to do where you were very very factual and you never ever allowed your own opinions to appear in any of the stuff, any of the work that you did In those days There was a big editorial staff to be for both the evening paper and the press and journal and in fact the people working for those papers they did in my day a week about each in each paper but there were some real characters among them as well and of course you had to work on them Do you have memories of some of those? Aye Jack Webster of course went on to greater things and you had George Rowntree Harvey in his post war years The story with George Rowntree Harvey is that he and another chap George Rowntree Harvey apparently worked in before the war worked in the B&J subs During the day he went to the university and he graduated with first class honors in the university He did he was a preacher I thought he also did he was also a broadcaster We had quite a lot of under the training scheme one chap who came up was Ewan Bowater his father Ewan Bowater Bowater paper Eton Cambridge and Ewan very nice chap I think he succeeded in this now and became Sir Ewan I don't know if he's still around or not He went to live in Cornwall I think He used to meet him there he used to go down there on holiday Later we he was over there for a short time was a chap called Tim Devlin who became an MP was the son of Lord Devlin one of the judges Well you had some very learned ones as we mentioned earlier Dr. Cuthbert Graham He was a lot more than that because he was very much a leading historian It wasn't just local history either Cuthbert Graham was very well graduated indeed He took his subjects extremely seriously of course He was the one who made the weekend journal the weekend edition of the Press and Journal of the Weekend with its book reviews a lot of very good photography from the Press and Journal's area as well as all kinds of literary stuff It was a remarkable publication He wrote a picture each week This is my country He went from various districts Of course he received a honorary degree from the University The only other person I think receiving a degree was Jack Webster I think that was from RGU Jack had a remarkable career after a very humble start But I can't think of any else who Well W.P. Paul remember was one who wrote quite a lot of features What most folk didn't realise was he was a very noted military historian W.P. Paul, Willie Paul He had a name as a military historian not just in this area He was very much into the military stuff He knew a great deal about it So he was always worth consulting He was one of those who weren't on the staff but who did a great deal of work for the paper on all manner of subjects from cookery to architecture I remember W.P. Paul I didn't know he had publications here I just knew that Bill was keen on military I didn't realise it but he's back Yes, he was a military historian Your wife Phyllis was a Spoonhaven native as well just like you, is that right? Yes Her parents emigrated to Flint in Michigan and she was educated there and during the Depression her mother and brother returned to Spoonhaven and she and her brother Frank went to Federalist School In 1948 she came on holiday with her mother and there may be another time and then I went across the states and we were married in 1960 Was that in America or here? Here So in 1960 you had well over 50 years She died nine years ago in 1994 I think Quite a long time We celebrated our golden wedding we had 50 on to 90 What was it 61 Mark? So 2010 roughly Ok that's just fine Now let's go back a wee bit and tell us a bit about your service to the Gordon Highlanders In those days everybody had had national service to do so you must have had two years and I remember being told that of course hundreds of thousands of young men went to various different parts of the world that otherwise they would never have seen but it must have had an effect on them the growing up effect of being among peers in other parts of the world to the Gordon Highlanders and I was only in the Gordons until April when three of us from the barracks two from the Cameroonians and me from the Gordons were sent on courses to learn about to be radar mechanics Now all the regiments in the British Army were sending people for this course and eventually I was transferred to RIMI as a radar mechanic and I was on radar equipment on set sleds So that's what they were using the radar for in the Army Were you selected because of school record were you good at mathematics or something Well, the only thing I could think we had aptitude tests and they asked about did you have any school certificates and I put in this school certificate hire which was absolutely correct and the people who looked at it So that's the only thing that I can think of So you went off then to the radar school I went down to Leicester and we were told the basic things electrical circuits, push-pull circuits and from there we went to North Berwick, billeted in the Marine Hotel at North Berwick and I think we signed the Official Secrets Act because we were given a bit about radar This business about eating carrots it helped night fighters, a lot of nonsense It was radar that did the job That was the legend of Cat's Eyes Cunningham So after North Berwick where were you stationed until you finished your school Mostly I was attached to a battery from Stoke-on-Trent and I spent most of the time around East Yorkshire in the Hull area Which of course was being bombed very heavily It was industrial in harbours So were you in the UK then for the whole of your military service No, we went to France quite some time after D-Day and we were stationed when I was at a place called Lepus near Cherbourg and we moved to various other places and I remember a convoy when they were moving up near Germany that St. Valery had been gotcha no, taken back taken back by the 51st Heller Division So did you stay with radar units then right through the war Well at the end of the war our unit was broken up and I was along with a few of us some of the people that I was quite friendly with we all went for different ways I was sent of course to Brussels to go into the signals and I was transferred to the signals in Munster and I ended up working in an office So your service in total then began as a very young man Well I was amongst my 19th birthday when I entered the army You were called up So you joined the Gordon Highlanders and then it was the RIMI and then it was the Royal Signals Signals for the last year or so You had been all over various places in the UK but then also into France and Germany We went to Belgium as well from West Yorkshire we went down to the south coast we were just waiting you know, just waiting to go across But then you were stationed as you said at Cherbourg Well near the Cherbourg Peninsula near Cherbourg So again I take it it was aircraft that you were on the lookout for all the time presumably Well it was I mean I can't recall any attack in Cherbourg It's been quiet over that time So when was it, which year did you actually come out of the armed forces and back into city street? Well I left in December 19, just before Christmas December 1946 and I started work with George MacDonald in the Herald in February 1947 So that was in the Aberdeen office of the Glasgow Herald which was in Union Row as part of George Uterman Company's printing works and of course that's where they printed the famous Bonnacourt newspaper as well And the Merse And that printing works were made open for a very long time after that I think this is when I was told at one time that I don't know if there was a slip edition of the Bulletin or something done there There could be yeah, but of course they also did high quality colour printing such as the Scottish Field magazine which they also owned Uterms did that I didn't know, well I don't know It was printed there, it was printed in Perth It was printed mainly in Perth, there were certain bits of it came to the high quality units That was the general printing department Oh yes, it was a big printing works One of the girls that worked in the front office in Union Row we were on holiday in New Zealand and we were in the back of E.O. and the chap said to me there's somebody from your neck of the woods living in the next chalet and it turned out it was this girl she'd emigrated to Australia and she was with her brother who I think came from Gordon but he was staying up north, or lived up north because I got a letter from Jean Weir one of my colleagues saying that she'd read in the Northern Scot not the Northern Scot the paper in Goldsberry Northern Times and I had been in Australia and there was this chap had some connection, whether he was a contributor or not and he'd met me in New Zealand Jean Weir's dad was the correspondent for all the daily papers based in Goldsberry and he bruised Weir At that point Jim, after the war you were working with the Glasgow Herald and Glasgow Evening Times and of course the Bulletin in its day was a very famous newspaper you were based in the Aberdeen office of those papers and clearly I think so when did you actually finish with the Herald and what prompted your move to Aberdeen Journals? Well I was there for the Herald for 14 months and George MacDonald suggested I might be able to follow in behind some of the most senior people at P&J and of course the salary at P&J was much bigger than what I got at I was getting virtually weekly payments as against what the National Newspaper meant So when was it then that you actually joined Aberdeen Journals? April 1948 and at that time it was Express and General and Evening Express and they were based in Broad Street General News Reporter? Were you a General News Reporter? Yes By that time you were well skilled and qualified so you were covering some of the bigger stuff the local authorities and the senior courts that kind of thing and two or three senior reporters covered that and we covered courts and Aberdeenshire committees just general reporting work and around Aberdeen? Yeah well you'd maybe sent to court at Stonhaven or I was sent up to Inverness once or twice as holiday relief and once sent to Orkney and then from Orkney down to Dubbo to Wick to do a job there and no way back to Aberdeen Now I recall doing basically the same job I left the Man's Leader and joined the Glasgow Herald in Aberdeen in fact at your suggestion is that I recall and indeed I worked with George Macdonald Senior there At that time of course things like lifeboat stories where they went out to ships in distress or mountain rescue stories in the days of hardly any helicopters at all they ran for days and days whereas now they can be over in a matter of hours really it was a very very different life then wasn't it for a news reporter to what it is now? Well I recall a sea story where there was an opportunity for somebody to go out in a rescue boat and one chap volunteered he'd never been in the army he was so seasick people back in the office had to write up the story from the office because he was absolutely all out seasick What do you recall as highlights or major stories of your years when you were at Aberdeen Journals when you were reporting that is Well the major story post war was obviously Piper Alpha but I had retired by that time I'd actually come down to do relief work for Ted Stachan who ran a newsletter an oil newsletter and Ted was going away for the weekend his weekend of course was finished because of Piper Alpha I suppose the biggest story would be the Garvey murder trial which ran for a week I think I think at the day of the verdict I think we sold something like 100,000 papers huge, and in those days in the post war days people used to queue in Broad Street to get the football results in the Green final of course sports papers have all disappeared now I don't know of any sports papers Not many left the Saturday evening The Garvey case was a very tragic one and in a way for people who had been associated with Stonehaven it was a very unhappy one but I do recall Fred Stephen the old freelance in Stonehaven refused to work on the Garvey case at all. He had nothing to do with it he said. He lived in Stonehaven his family lived in Stonehaven, he worked in Stonehaven and he just felt it was far better if the newspapers for which he worked normally put their own people onto that job their own teams, and he never had anything to do with it Did he ever talk to you about that at all? No By that time you must have been on the news desk at the Evening Express. When did you join the Evening Paper as what was Deputy Chief Reporter full time? 1960 60. And of course in the days when both papers were selling quite a lot of copies, they were quite big Yeah, the Press and Journal was about 113,000 and the Evening Express was about 75,000, 77,000 Change of days truly What are your memories? Not long after I joined the Glasgow Hill, which was in 1968 4, April 64, the first big story for me that arose was the typhoid epidemic in Aberdeen, and I think you were on the news desk at the Evening Express. No, I was reporting Oh, you were reporting at that time. So did you get involved in that one at all? Yes Dr McQueen held two press conferences What was the place it was? Anyway, it was a morning and an evening Willowbank House, where his office was We would go up I don't know if it was two of us covering but at the evening press conference the two of us would go up and the radio car would be outside so that we could send a stop press Those days you could take a stop press up to about 5.30 You know, I mean, you'd see a number of people who now have done typhoid have listened to Ednus It was a huge story the typhoid story Yes, it was very heavily blown up all over the world, wasn't it? And it ran for several months, of course. It was a big one for quite a long period Yes, there's a story that at the end of typhoid, the Queen visited the townhouse and all the dignitaries all the senior officials who were lined up and one official who had a reputation for making jokes are all standing there and he turned to the man next to him and said, what do we sing? God Save the Queen? One of the officials told me that I recall an enormous crowd of people turned outside the townhouse to see her It was huge You were there, were you? I think people were just so relieved that the thing was really, truly, officially over What prompted your move from daily news reporting outside the office to running a news desk inside the office and organising a team of reporters? Well, of course, a set of things Somebody went to the harbour Somebody went to the Crumpet Regional Council Somebody went to the Town Council Somebody maybe went to our Quartet in Haven Somebody maybe went to our Quartet in Verurie You just mark these things in the book and, of course, if something big cropped up the thing would change You were inside, of course, on that inside job for quite a few years Seven years and then moved up to what, was it Chief Reporter and then News Editor? No, when I was Deputy Chief Reporter at the time of the Garvey trial I was one of the team in the case, reporting the case It was only when I became News Editor that I was for seven years that I was totally inside The rest of the time I was out maybe doing jobs When Albert was in Dalbert the news had its day off then I stepped in to deputise for him when he was on holiday and did jobs as well And then you remained, as you said, you were News Editor of the Aberdeen Evening Express when you retired Which was when? 1982 And it's now 2023 That's 41 years That's a long retirement I did freelance work As a matter of fact, after I retired There used to be a feature in the Evening Express It happened 25 years ago, 50 years ago I used to go down to the Woodside Library where there are old copies of the Evening Express and files I did that for about 65 when it became pension age Freelance work like oil exercises I used to write stuff when I had a diary column in the P&J I guess the general freelance work Kept yourself busy? Yeah, well I helped out with one of the old bowls I was asked if I would help out there and I did I did various jobs Which actually brings us quite neatly onto the leisure thing because we've been talking a lot about work You did have a sporting interest I recall you very well as a golfer and a bowler When did you actually start playing golf? Well I started when I came out of the army I came out of the army in 46 I think I joined St. Helens St. Helens Golf Club, 48 I was there until I retired in 1982 when I I had a ticket to play in the Army and also before that joined Edsel Golf Club So I started golf at Edsel I was also a member at Deeside for a very short time but I ended my golfing days at Edsel Which is a lovely course I've played it a couple of times So where did you get your handicap down to? Well in the old days if you had one good round a year your handicapped It's much more difficult now I think I was down to single figures about 4 or 5 at one time one good round They should go back to that again And what about bowling, was that a later thing that you took up? Well I took up bowling later I joined Seafield Bowling Club and the Aberdeen Indoor Bowling Club A very average bowler Well an average golfer I suppose Not with a forehandicap you weren't George Macdonald was a good bowler Of course you mentioned George Macdonald Senior He was one of the founder members of the Seafield Club and you worked with him He was succeeded as we talked earlier by a chap called George Macdonald Junior He replaced his father as the chief reporter in Aberdeen for the Glasgow Herald And yet of course he was a very good player as well Yeah Very good bowler yes George How long did you play balls? Because you must have been able to go on for quite a long time Well I was a tad when I started playing balls I would say in the 80s Because I was on the waiting list to get in When it came up I had also a chance to join the side that said to George Can I put this off? He said oh well if you put it off you'll go to the bottom of the list again But nowadays you can walk into these clubs It's a different situation now I don't know if you can walk in but certainly I don't know if they have waiting lists now Most of them do I think you and I both know that the whole business of newspaper journalism that we grew up in is a very very different thing nowadays And I get asked quite a lot what I think of newspapers and broadcast news as well now in comparison with those much earlier days when I was involved and indeed you were involved much earlier than that What do you see nowadays? Do you like what you see in our newspapers and our broadcast news now? It's a different situation altogether The healthy days of newspapers have gone I don't know It's not the same detail now It was in my day when she just told you things Well for instance Honours were You weren't awarded an OBE You were made or you would come These are things They don't bother me Awards are made or whatever The older people, the older journalists bring news of the things I mean marriage places become registry offices I mean now you've been pulled up for that I often get asked whether I would recommend journalism as a career to a young person anytime I've spoken to school classes If you were asked it now would you advise a young person to think about and build towards a career as a journalist Not in newspapers maybe in broadcasting or radio but certainly I think the days of newspapers their great days are past Killed by computers, the internet and of course changes of management accountants ended up running the companies instead of the people who did The newspaper then was the important thing in the building and that changed a few years ago and of course this internet thing has seen off the rest of it Everyone wants their news and features pre-digested nowadays They just don't seem to want to think about the big issues surrounding them Young people don't want to buy I don't buy newspapers I mean in old days newspapers, pennies, thompsons now it's one pound something plus During the first world war two nephews of my granny who came from New Zealand stayed with her during their leaves from France and in the second world war another nephew, a much younger man from a second marriage came and stayed with my grandmother and Ron served in the Navy He was a volunteer New Zealand Navy and we were on holiday in New Zealand and we were in Auckland and Ron by this time had become a judge and I said to Phyllis I wonder if Ron's on the bench today and we went into the courtroom and sat at the back and an attendant or an usher or one of the court officials came up and said Judge Gilbert wants you to sit on the press bench so Phyllis and I sat on the press bench and this reporter interviewed me about why I had been elevated and moved to the press bench and he I told him about the connection about Ron being in the Navy and coming to the to live and stay with my granny anyway when the courtroom went through this is Chambers and got a cup of tea and he told us a funny story about his experiences in the Navy helping to scap a flow so that was one time that I was on the press bench and never wrote a word that's when you became the news I'm sorry I didn't ask for a cutting I'd like to see what he wrote you should have got the paper sent to you in many respects a very familiar story the fact is that our society our population here in the north east of Scotland like the Highlands sent disproportionately large numbers of folk off into what then of course was the Empire and then it became the Commonwealth but the fact is they went, there was less work here there were more opportunities there so many of those places like New Zealand Australia, South Africa, some of the other African states Canada, the United States, some of the South American states they were developed on the basis of so many of our folk going and I do recall while working for the Merms Leader in 1963 and early into 64 we seemed almost to wrap more copies of that paper every Thursday to be posted abroad than we sold in the shops in St. Haven and clearly it wasn't because the paper was actually a big seller in its own town, it's not nowadays, it's not worth buying now probably, but in those days we had enormous bags of copies went to the post office every Thursday afternoon by 5 o'clock to get the trains to take them away to go abroad all over the world they went, Russia all kinds of countries like that, it was amazing really and it was something that, to me it was amazing but it just seemed to be taken in the stride, it was something perfectly normal I do recall having it explained to me by Charlie George, the editor, that a lot of these papers were going to the children and grandchildren of people who had emigrated from the Merms and from St. Haven and North King's Garden many, many, many years before but they simply carried on the subscription to the paper it doesn't happen now of course I doubt if any go abroad, you can never tell are you any regrets at all about your choice of career or is it something that in the mean you have enjoyed immensely no, I think that I'm quite happy to be a newspaper reporter I mean I my original intention was that following this visit from a visitor from Glasgow to join the railway service but that didn't happen so I mean I'm quite happy to be a newspaper reporter interesting life probably more interesting than the railway it's varied yes, you're never terribly sure what you're going to be doing when you go to work on any given day it's like I used to look to lecterns to see this was when you were going to Broad Street and the chief reporter was Peter Craighead and you would see the weather, oh God near the weather again I hate the job of a reporter anyway in those days you did important funerals and I'm looking at the diary and saying I had been bought for a funeral and I was looking at the lectern at the diary and a voice I said why am I getting all these funerals because they're a miserable so and so just like Craighead and Jimmy Forbes so one of the funerals I did was Lady Macrobert who had three sons who all died either in action or in air or in action or in accident and Peter Craighead said it's a cool story about planes dipping in salute over the Vale of Cramar coffin made from wood in the state blah blah blah so I'm walking away on a Saturday night with writing this up ready to do another job at 2 o'clock on a Sunday put my copy in and Jimmy Grant was in there then and he picked up my copy and said what are you trying to do fill the paper in your own and that was polite coming from him and and I went in it wasn't cutting anyway yes he was quite a character I was sitting in his office one night as you know I spent a very short period of time only about 9 months working with Aberdeen journals but I was on a press and journals shift and I was in his office with him working on one particular story it was at the height of the Vietnam War and there had been a dreadful battle and it made a single column half a dozen paragraphs at the top of the foreign news in brief but of course only nationals were splashing huge pictures and head reporters at the spot but we were a regional daily paper that wasn't our role at all anyway a lady phoned and she was really very angry and upset and she said it was deplorable how the press and journals barely mentioned this terrible war that was raging in South East Asia how could they ignore it and Jimmy Grant who had listened to all this as you know could be very brusque and he said we had got money readers in Saigon and he hung up and that set the tone for the thing she called back a few minutes later and what he said to her then I am not going to repeat now because it was extremely rude Peter Watson who succeeded Jimmy told me he would be in his office one day and the voice at the other end had obviously said it's Colonel so and so and Jimmy had answered Sergeant Grant here Thank you for talking to us a long life Thank you for talking to us I was sent to a meeting of Aberdeen Rotary Club at which the speaker was William Veitch who was then Chief Advisory Director and the president of Aberdeen Rotary Club was Mr. Alec Young who was the Director of Education for Aberdeenshire and introducing Mr. Veitch Mr. Young said that the prison journal was a paper which gave a local slant to national news and when the Titanic sank it said Titanic Sinks Aberdeen Man Drowned so Veitch story faced got up and said we spend millions of pounds on education in this country and the Director of Education doesn't know his facts it wasn't a man who drowned it was a woman and it wasn't true anyway it's a myth it was a normal headache it was quite bad so that's the finale as I said well enjoyed so congratulations to you thank you we'll see you soon at your 100th birthday take care .