In the Guardian's deaths ads I noted a guy I knew distantly. He was big in the National Union of Journalists, of which I was a member, but it was his wife I knew better. She edited a magazine across the corridor and I last saw her on the day the company closed her mag. I found her weeping, not for herself but for her staff. I gave her a hug which was unusual because I wasn't into hugging in those days.
Her husband's funeral was far away and I sent a commiserating letter (Not condolences - a lumbering word I've always hated.) via the funeral home. She responded, incidentally providing some dates I wasn't sure about.
Dates that occurred within my working life. I reflected. I started work on August 20 1951 and finished for good on about the same day in 1995. Forty-four years if I include two years spent serving my sovereign. NB, the latter phrase is ironic.
Much happened during those forty-four years. Rather less happened in the succeeding twenty-three years. Other than my astonishment. I've done nothing significant for a period equal to half my working life. When I fill in the Occupation slot on forms, Retired makes more sense than Former Journalist. I can't say I like "retired" as a profession. To be poetic I'm an ageing surfer riding a diminishing wave that will soon dissipate all its force on the beach. The place where, as Robert Burns said, "the sands of time gang dry".
But, hey, that's for tomorrow and, as those nobodies say, tomorrow never comes. That's Post 919 out of the way.
Journo links for Colette (or any anyone else who's interested)
Journalism 1
Journalism 2
Journalism 3
Journalism 4
Journalism 5
Journalism 6
Journalism 7
Journalism 8
Journalism 9
Journalism 10
Journalism 11
I did two posts on each of the days I wrote Journalism 1 and 8.These confusing and irrelevant "extras" cannot be disentangled from the links. Ignore them. Since I posted this list I have cut some and added others. Ever the editor.
Much like you these days RR. I did enjoy your poetic simile, which applies to me as well.
ReplyDeleteHow can you say that publishing your books is not significant? It makes me wonder how exciting your journalism career must have been. So I went to your list of labels to search for blog posts about journalism, hoping for stories. Now I wonder why you haven't sorted your blog posts labels alphabetically? Seriously, are there some posts about events in your journalistic career that you can send me to?
ReplyDeleteColette: My first blog (Works Well, blogonym Barrett Bonden) started off in 2008 devoted to technology, then broadened out. It lasted four years. Quixotically, and only for 24 hours, I ceased to blog then launched Tone Deaf devoted entirely to music, thus losing about 75% of my readership. After struggling for four or five months I developed TD into what you see today.
ReplyDeleteMost of my posts about journalism appeared in the broadened-out version of Works Well. These links - now added to the post - will provide an inkling of my journalistic career, working on newspapers, consumer magazines, and industrial magazines, latterly as editor. I doubt you'll be thrilled but you have to remember I was lucky enough - when asked at age 11 by my father - to choose a career for which I was suited (possibly the only one) and which I thoroughly enjoyed, however squalid and lacking in cash, status and mystique. It's my experience that most people end up doing jobs which they never envisaged when young and where crust-earning is the only justification. Unambitious and driven by irrepressible curiosity I wandered round Tokyo and Puerto Ordaz (Venezuela in case you didn't know) unhampered by introspection, happy as Larry.
Re. novels. Anyone can write one; getting it read is the trick. I except singing, of course - a truly Damascene moment
Thanks for the post links.
DeleteColette: Within the terms of your original request, Journalism 10 is now more appropriate.
DeleteOh, that is a good one. I can see you really had to hit the ground running, and trust in your own ability to figure out right from wrong. What a great way to learn an occupation. And it must have helped to have a general interest in just about everything.
DeleteColette: I wondered - was it desperation that drove me? Believing that if I didn't get journalism right there wouldn't be any alternative. But it never felt like that. The company of journalists with their curious needs and obsessions seemed to be my natural world - so infinitely superior to being at school. You must remember that long before Trump journalists' standing in society was only two steps up from realtors and whorehouse proprietors. At worst immoral,at best seedy.
ReplyDeleteYour comment may be just about the kindest thing anyone has ever said about me and my job. Thanks for that.