The Shields Gazette
Oldest Evening provincial setting new records?
The Shields Gazette has a long and distinguished history. Whilst not the oldest newspaper in the UK (the Worcester Journal is considered to be England’s oldest surviving newspaper), our local evening paper was the first of 17 provincial dailies to be published, way back in 1855.
Saturday editions appear to be setting new trends in establishing records for speed and efficiency, I picked up my copy at my local newsagent at 10.15 a.m. this morning, the print was still wet!
Did anyone better that?
Yes Curly , I went for my morning paper and got the Gazette at 9:25am.
Nick
November 3, 2007 at 2:11 pm
The world’s second-longest continually published newspaper in English (most on your reference link have since changed titles or merged with others) is the Gibraltar Chronicle has been published out here on the Rock continuously since 1801.
If any reader of this blog gets this as a pub quiz question then they owe me a pint.
Geoff
November 3, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Curly,
Just happened on your site and thought you might be interested in a few old Gazette anecdotes. I worked there from 1960 to 1964, on the sports desk, under Bill Bawden and Dick Kirkup (RIP, one of the game’s great gentlemen), starting, full time, straight out of school, at 30 bob a week. With no overtime for covering evening and weekend events. The editor who hired me was C. Wallace Jackson, who, to my horror – these were innocent days – was fired a few weeks after I started after being caught in a compromising position with his secretary (he was shagging her on his desk). Jimmy Sinton, a gent, took over as editor. The news desk consisted of Stan Oliver, Maurice Snaith, Bill Galley, Alan Egdell and Dave Milner – who fled to what was then Southern Rhodesia to escape his debtors, including myself, around 1965. Another news desk veteran was Bob Bentley, one of the truly great drunks, whose long-suffering wife, Marjorie, was a reporter. We used to spend much time at the old General Havelock, where beer cost less than a shilling a pint. I also remember having the task of doing 25 Years Ago, 50 Years Ago and 100 Years Ago, for which I used to spend hours, fascinated, among ancient, yellowing newspapers in the bowels of the building on Chapter Row. I often wonder if the old papers are still there. And if some young reporter’s doing the same job and coming across my fading bylines. I left in 1964 when I got an offer I couldn’t refuse (26 pounds, ten shillings a week, the Fleet Street minimum at the time) from the Sporting Life in London. After that, I worked for the Evening Chronicle (sports desk, under Sammy Brooks), the Daily Mail, Manchester (sports desk, under Brian Webster) and then went to Canada for a year, which turned into 20. Currently living in St. Kitts in the Eastern Caribbean and working for a few months at the moment at the Sun-Times in Chicago. And got a book coming out early next year, published by Macmillan, a biography of Bob Marley – whoever’s reading this, do buy it, I need the money. If there’s anyone still around at the Gazette from my long-ago days, please tell them to drop me an e-mail. Oh yes, one other character I remember well was John Landells, the shipping correspondent (I Cover the Waterfront). The Tyne was hopping in those days, and my ferry from North Shields (I’m a Whitley Bay lad) had to dodge its way through the tankers (to say nowt of the shite).
Later on, when I was pushing 20, I used to stop for one or two on my way home at the old Jungle (upstairs, the posh bit).
Cheers,
Garry
(One last thing: What caught my eye in your blog was the bit about how quick the papers get out these days. I used to work on the Football Pink on Saturdays. The games would be over around 20 to five, and we’d have the last copy into the composing room (full results, updated league tables etc.) around five to. The paper would be off the stone (all this with hot metal, Linotypes, real live proof readers) around ten past, printed (in the same building) by five thirty, and I’d pick one up in Whitley Bay around 6 on my way home)
garry steckles
November 17, 2007 at 9:40 pm
[...] with an interest on our local evening paper may be interested in the comments left under this post by Garry Steckles, currently living in St. Kitts and working on the Sun-Times in Chicago. Garry [...]
Old press anecdotes « Curly’s Corner Shop, the blog!
November 19, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Oops! In my recent contribution to your site, reminiscing about my three and a half years at the Gazette from 1960-1964, I recalled how quickly we used to put out the Saturday “Football Pink” Of course our paper was Green – our hated rivals, the Chronicle, put out the Pink. I worked on the Chronicle sports desk a few years later, around 66-67, and did many shifts on the Pink, which, along with too much rum and too many beers over too many years, might have contributed to my blooper.
garry steckles
December 20, 2007 at 10:48 pm
@garry steckles:
Would they have been in The Douglas Vaults or The General Havelock Garry?
curly
December 21, 2007 at 12:14 am
[...] Former Shields Gazette reporter Gary Steckles gets a mention in Gawker, the New York media gossip site, as he plugs his new book about the life of raggae star Bob Marley. You wondered what qualifications Garry Steckles a St. Kitts restauranteur, brings to his job as a consultant for the Chicago Sun-Times, which is facing imminent layoffs. Apart from being childhood friend of the Chicago newspaper’s editor-in-chief, “I worked [at English newspaper Shields Gazette] from 1960 to 1964, on the sports desk… full time, straight out of school, at 30 bob a week,” he writes via the comments section of an English news blog. [...]
Old Shields Gazette reporter in New York gossip columns « Curly’s Corner Shop, the blog!
January 12, 2008 at 1:42 pm
does anyone have any photos of the reyroll,s football team from 1964 -64 charity do iv been looking for old friends from then for a long time please email me
thank you in advance
julie
julie hardy
January 23, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Would anyone on here know if they have any information about Frederick Sarson. He aparently worked for the Shields Gazette around 1950 – 1970 I’m not sure exactly but he was my grandfather and just wondered if anyone know anything of him. Thanks in advance
ashleigh sarson
March 20, 2009 at 2:23 pm