F arewell to the Lincoln Chronicle, formerly the Lincolnshire Chronicle, which had origins dating back to the 1800’s. (This picture is applicable …please read on!)
In a shock announcement on January 19th Editor Mike Lyon thanked his readers, contributors and advertisers and confirmed the closure of this venerable Lincoln title, in recent years a giveaway but a paid for weekly for most of its long life.
The paper was vociferous in the typhoid epidemic of 1904/05 and outspoken in various planning battles in the 1960s and 1970s. It is sad to see its voice fall silent.
The closure was a surprise to many ex-staff members – myself included – who were helped immeasurably in our media careers by the start we got on the “Chron.”
Mike Maloney, who began in the print works, was encouraged to pursue his hobby of photography and the paper printed many of his weekend efforts. He rose to become Chief Photographer of the Daily Mirror and enjoyed friendly terms with Princess Diana and notorious Mirror boss Robert Maxwell.
Tony Brooks graduated to a long journalistic career on the Daily Express – and there were other characters too, like Sean Dooley, genial Liverpudlian who became editor of the Stoke Evening Sentinel, and sports reporter David Alexander.
Talking of characters Peter Brown – that’s him in the guise of his alter ego, Bimbo — and myself (the good looking one!) first met as junior reporters on the paper in the 1960s.
Peter and I have decided that the death of a newspaper should not go unmarked and we are planning a get-together – some, I suppose, will call it a wake – of former staff members (old Chron-ics?) to mark its passing. So please, would any old boys and girls of the Chronicle please e-mail to andy@blowbyblow.co.uk This event will be on the evening of Thursday March 15th in the K.C.Bar at the South Park Stand at Lincoln City F.C.’s stadium from 6.15 p.m.
The Chronicle will live on in the bound files from decades past in the Local Studies section of the Lincolnshire Library and many a researcher will still need to scan its musty pages ( It was still carrying a front page entirely of advertisements when Peter and I joined!) We propose to forward a photograph of our get together to be held in the Local Studies section and we will encourage all present to write a sheet or two of their memories of life on the “Chron.” On this occasion I’m sure there’ll be many memories of the editorial seniors of the 1960s – men like Harry Franklin, Geoffrey Fielden, Ted Robinson and John Thompson — and the characters in the print works in Waterside South.
Peter recalls that when photographer Derrick Kent went on holiday he, as a junior reporter, was trained to take photos using aged cameras where the image was exposed on to a negative plate of about five inches by three. Peter trudged all the way up the Central Tower of the Cathedral to photograph repair work only to find, back in the office, that all of the plates he took with him had already been exposed on another story!
He and I were told to cycle around Lincoln to call on every pub to get the figures from the pub’s annual Sick and Dividing Club pay-out. The Sick and Dividing Club paid out during the year to anyone who fell ill….and at Christmas everyone shared what was left. This was a community effort that dated back to before the development of Government sick benefit and the Chronicle had long produced an annual “League table”. We divided the City into two and I recall quite a merry ride around the hostelries – not a job available to today’s journalists!
STOP PRESS: Many thanks to Terry Giles who is helping us to find old colleagues!
