Ross-shire Journal at 150: ‘I was sent on my way with a pack of typing paper’
The Ross-shire Journal’s first edition was published 150 years ago this week. We’ve been looking back on some of the changes over that time and reflecting on what the title means to various people. Hector Mackenzie gives his thoughts on a long association.
I REMEMBER the day I first stepped through the door of the former Ross-shire Journal and North Star office on Dingwall’s Docharty Road. I wanted to find out whether I was cut out for journalism; if I could perhaps make a living from the trade which had been calling me since primary school days.
Why those papers? Born in Dingwall the son of a West Coaster and with toddler time in Easter Ross before a flit to the Black Isle for the formative three-to-18 years, it felt like the county was in my blood. Now I just needed to find out if ink was too.
It was an immediate education to listen to the respective editors, David Watt and Willie Wilson, who could scarcely have been more different. One quiet, bordering on shy, the other a whirlwind force of nature, each had unique qualities but were united by a love for what they did.
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And to their eternal credit, both heard me out before sending me on my way with a hefty packet of A4 typing paper and a vague invitation to cover community councils.
Sifting the wheat from the chaff at some of those seemingly endless meetings - while simultaneously trying to figure out who had said what and whether it might make a ‘line’ - was the start of a steep learning curve.
Deciphering scratchy shorthand notes - initially learned from a book borrowed from the mobile library that used to stop opposite my Munlochy schoolhouse home - I’d turn to the manual typewriter and start banging out rough copy.
Those Tippex-peppered pages would literally be handed over to one of those editors for corrections and onward transmission to typesetters. And from there, words I had plucked from the air would appear in neat columns and, occasionally, front page splashes. The thrill of the thundering printing press, the smell of ink and the teamwork required to pull it all together have always remained with me.
Fast forward to the present day and we publish straight to the web, a story which broke five minutes ago brought to anyone with access to the internet, anywhere in the world. Now that too is quite something, isn’t it?
Living through a communications revolution, I realise that despite all the dizzying changes in technology, storytelling remains as important as ever. It’s the glue that helps bind communities together and a means of celebrating success and shedding light on things that need to be addressed.
A few weeks after community reporter Iona MacDonald joined us as a 16-year-old trainee, she showed me a front page Ross-shire Journal cutting her granny had saved of two bright-eyed schoolgirls just starting Primary 1 in Ullapool. She was one of them and, as I looked closer, I realised I had written the caption. And now here she was ready to learn whatever I can pass on and, in turn, prepared to shed fresh light on the digital age we are now embracing. That’s teamwork.
Exciting times 150 years on - and counting!
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