Here come the girls

Had a fabulous catch-up in Tavistock with four former colleagues (left). It may have been more years than we care to remember since we first met in a portakabin in Plymouth, but we look darned good!  Back then, we were embarking on our journalists' training, and on Saturday night as we reminisced, we realised how fortunate we were to do  it and what a marvellous training it was.

One of the questions we asked at the weekend was "who still has their cuttings book?"  I still have mine, and the stories are typical of a small local paper of record. The South Devon Times cost twelve pence in 1980 and carried stories about local organisations, weddings, dog shows, the WI. We were sent on "prowls" of our particular patch, which I hated with a vengeance. In these pre-Google days, journalists were expected to go and find news.

One of my biggest stories was about a railwaymen's social club which forgot to renew its alcohol licence and was "dry" for a month. This story was picked up by the sister paper, the Daily Mirror.

Another of my most memorable stories was about the Yealm harbourmaster coming under fire at a local council meeting. I was sitting at the back of the room, unnoticed by the councillors, and came away with a story about "what had he been doing on the night two boats sank?!"

When the story was published there was a local outcry, and the next story was "Harbourmaster defended." The story ran for weeks and was even discussed at a public inquiry which I covered. I was persona non grata in the village of Noss Mayo, populated by a good many surgeon rear admirals and people with double barrelled names.

I was lucky enough to have my own column in the paper every week, where, as a 19 year old, I expatiated in pompous vein on a range of topics including cats, men's socks, and - right - defending parents from smug and silly teenagers.

118/365: Tall buildings

I've spent quite a bit of time in London this week. It's only 26 minutes away by train but "going in town" feels like an event.

I happened to be in the Chancery Lane area to collect some contact lenses so I took a picture of the former BT International building where I spent two happy years a long time ago.

When I first pitched up at BT, having moved from Devon and a fun radio job, I didn't think I could bear it. I was in a huge room filled with people but strangely silent, the hum of conversation muted along with the air conditioning.

I wondered at lunchtime, that first day, if I could chain myself to the Mirror Group Newspapers building, which was opposite, until they gave me a job  (MGN having been my first employer.)

But I quickly adapted to live at BT and look back on it with very fond memories.

Teeline and typwriters

It's 30 years since a nervous bunch of school-leavers and graduates gathered in a Portakabin in Plymouth to be taught how to be journalists. Here I am, on the left, with Julie Skentelbery.

This Saturday most of us return to the city - my ancestral home - for a reunion. We will start our sojourn in the Holiday Inn where John Pilger was memorably short changed.

Back in '79, I was a fresh faced school-leaver who saw an ad for a trainee reporter in local paper The South Devon Times. I'd always wanted to be a journalist but as my deputy head mistress memorably put it, "Gail is too shy to get her foot in the door".

I somehow managed to get my foot in the door by mentioning at the interview how I read everything, including sauce bottle labels. That struck a chord and I was hired.

The course was run by Mirror Group Newspapers as a training ground for their string of regional weeklies (paid for at that time) and their nationals the Mirror, People and Sunday Mirror.

The first six weeks were spent in the Portakabin gaping at the graduates when they came up with words like "juxtaposition". We had to pass exams in numerous disciplines including Teeline shorthand, which was taught by the redoubtable Ella Furze. I still remember the outlines for "accident blackspot" and "to the best of my ability".

We were being paid a pittance at this time but nonetheless deductions were taken for the Olympia Monica typewriters we had to buy. No computers in those days.

We were occasionally marched off to courts and morgues to get a taste of life as reporters. We made hideous errors in those first reports. It is fortunate for habitual criminal Ernest Foxy Fowler that these were never published.

Having a press pass meant we could sneak into all sorts of events and situations, and Margery and I drove to St Austell where she was interviewing The Stranglers. We were very excited and all dressed up, but they kept us waiting for ages and were then bored and sarcastic. How rude!

After the six weeks were up we were sent out to the outposts of Devon and Cornwall to staff regional papers. I worked on the South Devon Times. Sometimes it was a struggle to come up with the big stories and then we'd have to lead with "Lettuce soon a Luxury" or "Asda to open on Monday".