Jim Ireland (J. W. Ireland, father of chapel, senior Lino operator at Driffield Times for many years) operating the Model 48 - the one I wanted to work!
Driffield Times was once based in Exchange Street, Driffield, and the Linos were upstairs.
After working as an apprentice at the Bridlington Chronicle from 1952 to 1954, I carried on the apprenticeship at Driffield, as both newspapers were by then owned by Yorkshire Post Newspapers (I think!).
From that office I left to do National Service, and by the time I returned after three years (I signed on to do an extra year), the composing room was in a newly built factory on Wansford Road alongside the railway.
The site is now a housing estate named Fawcett Gardens as it covers the site of Benjamin Fawcett's Driffield operation.
Three Linotypes (two model 4s and a model 1) at the Bridlington Chronicle.
I started there in early September 1952 and my Eagle diary tells me that I spent the day "doing metal."
I remember melting the metal down in a huge gas-fired crucible (it made a hell of a stink!).
I left school at 16 and started more or less straight away on the Linos. I missed out all the traditional hand-comping experience.
In 1954, when the newspaper was sold to the Bridlington Free Press, we threw all the equipment etc. out of the window into a yard so that it could be taken away.
I still have the type blocks for the masthead of the Chronicle.
Once at Driffield I was deferred from National Service as I attended night school for Linotype Mechanics.
This involved a train trip to Hull and the Hull Daily Mail to be taught by their resident mechanic (can't recall his name).
I've still got the micrometer I was given there.
It was on the train that I learned to play brag and pontoon. I remember also playing hookey one night and going to see "The Quatermass Experiment."
I had to admit it to my parents because I woke up in the night with nightmares and they wondered what I was screaming at!
A small selection of Letterpress Ebay listings appear below. A much bigger selection appears here. Linotype-related Ebay listings are here.
