Birchington Heritage Trust   - Newsletter   

 
by Bernard La Roche

aving done a six year apprenticeship in the Printing Industry it is completely incomprehensible how in this present day the mode has changed causing the demise and downfall of the industry that I once knew. When I first left school I was told by my father "to succeed in life you must have a trade to your name". I chose print, because at school, we were fortunate enough to have had a ‘case of type’ in our Arts and Crafts department and a hand fed platen printing machine, and we printed our own school magazine. Boys interested in printing, could be signed off from a games period for example and go to the teacher in the Arts and Crafts class and learn about printing.

            We would set the type around the illustration according to a page plan drawn up by the teacher for that page, and another boy would have, for example,  the honour of making a ‘lino cut’ of the House Badge to complete the page.  This was a privilege I enjoyed, I suppose, of having a private school education.

            When leaving school, we had to make the decision as to what we wanted to do, some boys wanted to go on to University, one boy even wanted to be a pig farmer.  The strange thing with me, print was my second choice, first of all I wanted to be a racing cyclist in France and ride in the Tour-de-France.    Once again my father put his foot down “with a firm hand” and told me in no uncertain terms, “That’s not a trade” !  

            After leaving school, I walked around Woolwich, where I was living at the time, as my parents owned a Restaurant there.  I knocked on the doors of local printers (because my father told me to do just that) to see if I could get an apprenticeship as a compositor.   After many rejections, I entered the office of Merritt & Hatchers in Greenwich, a local newspaper - The Kentish Mercury,  who in turn sent me round the corner to a small printing firm (known in those days as a ‘winkle bag’ printers) in Deptford High Street.

            It was an education in itself, the ‘Governor’ told me he was looking for an apprentice compositor but it was going to be a difficult career, and a lot of studying would be required, it would take me about a year to learn the ‘layout’ of the case (upper and lower), but when I explained that I already knew the format, he doubted my word and replied, “I thought you said you had just left school.” Thinking I was trying to pull a fast one, he promptly put me to the test.

            After giving me a small exercise, it was signed, sealed and settled, I got the job.   He even asked me if I would like to stay for the rest of the day for which he would pay me ‘cash in hand’ and pay my bus fare back home.  I was delighted.

            From then on my new ‘governor’ told me I would have to attend the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts on a day release basis and that would also include two nights a week night classes for which they would pay for and if that would be acceptable to me and my parents then the job was mine.    If after one year I fitted the roll, then my Indentures would be back-dated to the date I started work.

            That was a stroke of luck, because two weeks before, the last apprentice was called up to do his National Service.  It was a very old fashioned firm, and at that time I did not realise, that all type sizes were based on ‘Old English’ measurements, like Brevier, Long Primmer, Pica, Double Pica, Diamond, etc., etc.

            After about nine months at work, the new school term started in the September of that year, I was then told to sign on at The Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts at Camberwell near the Oval, and on the first day at print school, like all the new intakes, we were given our first typesetting exercise for which we had to use our own imagination and find the type case, mine was 10pt Baskerville.  

            After about one hour of searching for 10pt Baskerville, I could not find it and when I was approached by my tutor and asked why I was taking so long, I said I can’t find the type face.    “How long have you been working at your firm?" he said?    I replied, "About nine months Sir." !

            "If you were working at your firm now, what type face would you have set it in then?"  "Long Primmer", I replied.    He could not stop laughing.   From that roaring belly laugh, he replied, “That type face has not been used since about 1890.  What’s your ‘governors’ name - Caxton?"   He promptly sent me to the Head, who in turn had to telephone my firm and ask them if what I was saying was true.   He started laughing as well.   "Why", I said, "what’s the matter?" 

            When I went on to tell him of all the other type faces I used at work and how we printed Crown and Double-Crown Posters with wooden Type that had wood-worm in it, he asked me if I would be prepared to give a talk to all the school on how printers managed before the American Point System was introduced to the British Printing Industry at the beginning of the 20^th Century, "Yes", was my reply.

            On one other occasion, I did not go to college because I had a ‘bit of a cold’ and decided to take the day off.   The next day back at work my ‘governor’ asked me how I was getting on at college, very well I replied, what did you do yesterday, he said?   After "explaining" to him what I had been doing the day before, he exclaimed, "That’s rather strange, I’ve got a card here that says you didn’t attend."   "Oh!  You mean yesterday " ! – 'visage rouge', as they say in France.

            After I finished my apprenticeship, I left that “winkle bag printers” and went from firm to firm, each catering for their own brand of print, such as – Bank Note Printing, Books and magazines, the Newspaper Industry and General Jobbing, I finally ended up in the newspaper industry, local newspapers, national newspapers and for a short while on France-Soir, a French evening newspaper.

            I had worked as a ‘Summer Frame’ at the Financial Times for one year, the next year on the Daily Mail and then being offered a permanent position on the London Evening News.   Whilst working on the Evening News, I had won an entrance examination to St Edmunds Hall, Oxford University to study four subjects, one of those subjects was to study the ‘Imprint Law’ which covered – ‘Copyright’, ‘Trade Mark & Patent’, this grant was being offered by the Newspaper Society, The Master Printers Federation and The National Graphical Association jointly, they all being very important in the printing industry, as newspapers were often being challenged on the publication of photos, text and the like.   I hasten to say the Imprint Law is no longer with us.     

            When new technology started to come into print, I was still working on the Evening News, I took a re-training course onto the ‘Qwerty’ keyboard.  When the Evening News shut down, I went on to local newspapers, as printers from Fleet Street could not find jobs in print and were having to retrain into other industries.

            Printers were being kicked out of jobs left, right and centre.   I finally opened my own print shop – Gemini Art-Studio in Chatham, Head Office: Epple Bay Avenue.    I had acquired an old Linotype machine and Ludlow Machine at scrap metal prices, when, after about five years, the premises I was in came up for re-development.  That’s when print came to an end for me.  

            After floating around the streets of Birchington for about 10 years cutting lawns for a living, I was given an old cardboard box to take over the tip.  When I looked inside, I found a lot of old sepia post-cards of Birchington.  How could I throw them away?   Print still being in my blood, I decided to publish a book and name it – "Chronicles of Birchington and around the edges", using, I might add, new technology for its compilation.    

            If I live long enough, then perhaps I might be able to put my life-long trade into fruition and see this book of mine on the bookshelves of Birchington !

Bernard La Roche