In the mid-1960s, as a junior reporter on a weekly paper far into
the East End, I wanted nothing more in life than to work in Fleet
Street. I got my first taste when delivering photos to the Daily
Express picture desk on behalf of a freelance agency. I was
smitten straight away by the atmosphere, both in the bustling
office and in the busy side-streets. I called in at a pub (which I
later discovered was known as Aunties) and nursed a half pint
while eavesdropping snatches of conversation. It was the
beginning of a romance with the Street which lasted for the
following 25 years
I didn’t get to work there until the end of 1969, when, aged just
22, I landed a sub-editor’s job on Rupert Murdoch’s relaunched
Sun. I was lucky. Murdoch had appointed Larry Lamb as his
first editor and I happened to be working under Larry in the
Daily Mail’s northern office in Manchester. He knew what I
could do, and transported me to Fleet Street. I had reached my
goal. Everything about the area – the sights, the sounds and
the smell – was intoxicating. No matter that the lorries
delivering newsprint by day and collecting papers by night were
filling the air with lead. No matter that thousands of ink-stained
print-workers toiled night after night in conditions that Dickens
would have deplored a century before. No matter that
newspaper canteens were disgusting, as was the greasy Mick’s
Café. The romance eclipsed the reality
In this village within a city, with its ceaseless 24-hour
production cycle, there was never a moment when the lanes of
Fetter, Shoe and Chancery, and the streets of Bouverie,
Whitefriars and Tudor, were not alive with people. Everyone
seemed to know each other. Not only did every paper have its
preferred pub, so did each section within each paper, reporters
drinking in one and sub-editors in another. Journalists from rival
titles often mixed together, swapping gossip, telling tales,
bellyaching about their bosses. At The Sun, the Tipperary was
the most popular choice. When I joined the Daily Mirror, the
White Hart – always known by its nickname, the Stab, short for
‘stab in the back’ – was the regular haunt. After the pubs
closed, there was the Press Club, then in Salisbury Court,
which was reliably open until at least 3am.
However, it was not drink that made Fleet Street unique; it was
ink. Untold gallons of it flowed across the metal plates on the
printing presses. Plenty was used in the compositing room.
Lots of it ended up on the fingers of subs designated to work
‘on the stone’, where the pages were assembled from hot metal
slugs of copy straight off the Linotype machines. There were
thousands of us – a highly specialised, skilled, segmented
work-force – engaged in
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inner London’s last manufacturing
industry. Seven days a week we produced millions of
newspapers, a unique enterprise that imbued us with a sense
of specialness. And, given that newspaper production in Fleet
Street had a history stretching back to the early 18 th century, we
couldn’t imagine it changing
But, by the late 1970s, it was clear that change was not only
possible, it was necessary. Across Britain, weekly local and
daily regional papers were being produced more cheaply and
more efficiently with the use of computers. There was no need
for each paper to have a huge workforce. Just as importantly,
proprietors and editors were eager to improve profitability by
curbing the power of the print unions which had, over the years,
used their muscle to ensure their members’ earnings were the
highest in the land.
At the personal level, as with all love affairs, mine gradually
faded as the years passed. In getting used to the place, I saw
its flaws, most obviously in the filthy and hopelessly out-dated
print works. I visited newspaper offices where ‘new technology’,
as it was then called, had transformed production for the better.
It was cleaner and more stream-lined. Although I understood
the reasons for the unions’ intransigence, because their crafts
and skills were eliminated by the new processes, they were
standing in the way of progress. It was also the case, at The
Sun, that print-workers had twice ignored picket lines during
strikes by the National Union of Journalists. Without their
support, the NUJ’s cause was lost. Unsurprising then that when
it came to decide whether we should decamp from Bouverie
Street to Murdoch’s ‘fortress’ in Wapping, the NUJ vote was
overwhelmingly in favour. So, in January 1986, I said farewell
to Fleet Street, to the Tipperary, the Printer’s Pie, the Cheshire
Cheese, El Vino, the Press Club, the restaurants, the
alleyways, and that familiar smell of ink. The end of my
dreaming on the Street of a Thousand Dreams.
Roy was later Managing Editor (News) at the Sunday Times (1987-89); editor of the Daily Mirror (1990-91);
and media commentator for The Guardian (1992-2020). He is the author of four books, including a history of
national newspapers, Press Gang
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