107,000 stories later - the final word is by JD himself

THIS is the story I truly never saw coming. Sure, there had to come a final day.

But in honesty I could never really envisage it - still less write about it.

I am under duress from my Group Editor to write this. Peter Lindsey's been wittering on about it for weeks. It's a frightening prospect.

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But if I don't write it, Pete will only do it - and that's a still more terrifying thought.

After more than 47 years writing for the Bexhill Observer, metaphorically, I am hanging up my notebook today.

Fourteen bin liners packed with the detritus of working life bear witness to the fact the last 34 of those years have been spent in this Sackville Road office.

An entire Sunday morning was invested just clearing my desk.

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And the memories came flooding back with each item that I threw in the bags.

That first-day in August 1961 - a wet-behind-the-ears school-leaver arriving on a push-bike at the old print works and offices in Western Road...

An indentured junior in 1961 earned 6 8s a week. Wages in provincial journalism were not good then. They're not good now.

But I reckon I've lived a privileged life in that I have done a job that I love in the town that I love.

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Why didn't I move on? Natural lethargy had a lot to do with it. But job-satisfaction had a great deal more.

The arena may have been small in comparison to many. But I've had a grandstand seat in it. The job has made me a witness to Bexhill's highs - and its lows - over more than four and a half decades.

When Lord Beeching wanted to swing his infamous Axe over the West Station Line I covered the public inquiry.

When the line closed in 1964 I was on the last passenger-carrying train from Crowhurst. I then charted the decline in the town's economy as it lost many of its higher-earning commuters.

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And with my old pal and legendary photographer Jimmy Burke I was there in 1969 when explosives expert Neville Baber took down the line's viaduct, the much-loved 'Seventeen Arches'. They felt the thump of the explosion in our newsroom at Cambridge Road, Hastings.

What was my biggest scoop?

There is no question about it. It was working on the Bexhill Observer that enabled me to meet my future wife. Ann was Mayor's Secretary.

I used to call at the Town Hall for the Mayor's engagements. Nearly 40 years of blissfully happy married life later I still give thanks for that lucky break.

Longest hours? My all-time bottom-numbing record in the Town Hall Council Chamber was a marathon session starting at 6.30pm and ending at 1am.

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But the big debate was whether Rother should become the first of the new district councils to make its own chief executive redundant. And I had broken the news of the move to oust him.

Biggest story? Unquestionably, the 1986 Northeye Riot. In a nationwide night of prison violence 4.8m worth of damage was caused by dissenting inmates. Some 4.2m of that was done at Bexhill's Category C Prison.

As the only member of the prison's voluntary Board of Visitors available that night I was first into the prison at dawn with the Governor. The rest of the assembled press pack had to wait at the gate.

Lovely moment!

Or should the riot come under the 'longest hours' category? I had done a Wednesday's work, come home to dinner, gone off to cover the story with Jimmy and got back 12 hours later.

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A quick breakfast and it was back into work to make a start with colleagues who had joined me at the scene.

By Saturday we had an eight-page special edition on the streets.

Tired? Unbelievably. Sense of achievement within the hard-working team? Immense.

"Do you know everyone in town?" people ask. No. Of course not. But in a profession where having 'contacts' is all-important, working in your home town for so long has its advantages.

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Someone phoned years ago with a good story but only on the basis they wouldn't disclose their name.

He was insistent and kept repeating the fact he wouldn't be giving his name.

Having made a note of all he told me, I concluded the call by saying "Thanks, Arthur..."

When I met him in the street a couple of weeks later he said: "You ----! How did you know it was me?"

Simple: "We went to school together. I knew your voice."

I never revealed my source, of course.

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Fires and ship-wrecks, scandals - murders even - they have all come my way.

But perhaps some of the greatest satisfactions have not been the big stories but the little ones, the 'human interest' stories, stories of courage and self-sacrifice.

Perhaps the greatest pleasure has been to be invited into local schools to talk to the kids. We should be truly proud of our youngsters. They are great. Primary school children are my favourites - always polite, attentive, interested.

And they don't pull their punches.

"How much do you earn?" a little lad asked, to the embarrassment of the staff. I was able to tell him that I was on about the national average wage - but added that I counted myself a very rich man.

He was puzzled.

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I explained that I had my health, I had a happy marriage, a wonderful family and a job that I loved. What more can a man ask?

To have enjoyed a job involving long and unsocial hours would not have been possible without a wife who never once complained about spoilt dinners, restricted social life or my coming home in the early hours after some fire or accident and getting into bed with ice-cold feet.

I was hopeless at maths at school '“ one of the reasons that from the age of eight I set my heart on journalism. But by my calculations, based on writing a conservative average of 15 stories a day and allowing for holidays, I have churned out about 107,000 stories in my time.

A great proportion of those stories would not have been possible without the 'contacts' I have made, working acquaintances who became close friends, opposite-numbers in local government or the emergency services - people who took time to phone, fax or e-mail when there was something they thought I ought to know; sometimes in the middle of the night.

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I have served alongside so many wonderful colleagues that it is difficult to remember now who worked with whom. The bond is a deep one.

It is a joy when old pals who have gone on to greater things look you up and say some of their happiest days were when they trained on what is known ambiguously in the office as 'the B.O.'

Thanks everyone.

Thank you most sincerely for helping make the job such a joy.

One of the last series of stories I have written have, inevitably, concerned the economy - the frightening slide from 'credit crunch' to recession.

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Newspapers report on the effects of such things on others. But they are not immune from them.

The time has come when, for the good of the herd, our company has to cull some of the old stags. Better for the likes of myself to make a graceful departure a few months ahead of normal retirement than for young bucks with families and mortgages to be thrust into a difficult jobs market.

So it's goodbye from me as regards writing as an Observer staff member is concerned. But I will never truly be able to put the notebook away and readers can still expect to see reports in the Observer on the town organisations with which I am involved.

At last, garden, camera, hiking boots and - above all - family, will no longer take second place to the Bexhill Observer.

May my successor enjoy the role as much as I have and may the Bexhill Observer continue to serve Bexhill for many years to come.

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