Page 39 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

It took me several months to sell the idea to Morton’s management and in that time I
gained a friend in Terry Clark their group News Editor who I had originally met at the
Boston Standard in 1960. Terry had attended Boston Grammar School about two years
ahead of me and by the time I arrived at the Boston Standard, he was already established
on the editorial strength as a junior reporter.

“SPILSBY NEWS”
Back in Spilsby, premises were found for the infant ‘Spilsby News’ in the town, above the
local office of Parsons Coal Merchants. I was given six months to establish the title and my
task was not only to write the paper and take photographs but sell and design adverts at
the same time.

I had two bosses, Terry on one side and the money management on the other, who
relentlessly pushed for increasing revenue through advert sales.

The local office was an immediate success. Local interest stories poured in and the paper
was easy to establish with distribution outlets in most local villages.
Sales quickly rose to hundreds each week from nothing, I was delighted.

Management also could not deny that this gave extra strength to their other titles enabling
them to sell extra space to advertisers seeking clients in the Spilsby area.

Spare time was hard to find and work at Northcote had to take second place. I was now
earning £200 each week, a sum I had never managed before, but the time I had to put in
was relentless.

I was provided with a portable laptop computer on which to write the news stories.
This was connected to the tele-typsetter machines at the Horncastle printing works by
modem and telephone and presented my work ready for placing in the next edition by the
touch of a button.
All in 1988.
As the months passed, pressure to sell more adverts increased and I found myself in a
cleft stick.

Pressure was something I had taught myself to avoid over these past three years or so
and despite the fact that I loved the paper I had created, I was still taking those important
little yellow tablets three times every day and my thoughts turned to finding something else
to occupy my time and earn money to live on.

BIG HORSES
Within days of these thoughts, Young’s Brewery from London telephoned to say they
were about to retire our old shire horse ‘Ebony’.
He was being used to train younger horses to the task of propelling brewery drays round
the street of Wandsworth, South London but soon he would be 14 years old and his
working days would be over.