IT'S sad to see the closure of the Irish News office in Donegall Street as it marks the end of an era, not just for this newspaper, but also for the area that was once Belfast's 'little Fleet Street', a buzzing district that housed most of the city's press at one time.
Further down the street were the offices of the News Letter and its sister paper, the Sunday News, while the then evening paper, the Belfast Telegraph and Ireland's Saturday Night, were published round the corner on Royal Avenue.
The nearby pubs, The Front Page and McGlades were the press folk's haunts at lunchtime, when it was a short walk for reporters covering the trials at the Crumlin Road courthouse.
Monthly union meetings would be held at the Royal Avenue Hotel, where I have a dim memory of an off-shoot meeting by the few female reporters which was known as the 'Petticoat Club'. These were not enlightened times.
At one time or other, I worked for nearly all the above titles. The Sunday News was by far the most eccentric. I started doing news shifts on a Saturday night as a freelance, when the stand-up rows between the editor and his gifted, but volatile chief sub-editor, were legendary.
Once, a typewriter was thrown in the editor's direction after one heated exchange. I sat with my jaw dropping, then looked round to see the other reporters typing away without comment. This was apparently fairly normal.
Another shift ended with me serving behind the counter of a nearby bar where we'd gone for the evening break. The owner was too inebriated to be left in charge, so the editor drove him home and told me to "hold the fort" until another barman could be called in.
It was the first time I tried to pull a pint of Guinness. The look of despair from the elderly man who'd ordered it told me I hadn't made a decent fist of it.
"If I'd wanted a milkshake, I'd have asked for one. Gimme one by the neck instead." Another customer provided the translation, that he would prefer a bottle.
My late uncle, James Kelly, once remarked on the total quietness of modern newspaper offices, compared to his era. With their carpeted floors, and silent keyboards in place of clacking typewriters and people shouting to be heard, they lacked the same atmosphere, he felt.
There was nowhere noisier than the Telegraph newsroom as reporters used to yell "Copy" to have their individual pages taken by the teenage copygirls, with the top page swept off to the subs to compose headlines and check for mistakes, while the carbon copy, known as the "black" was left in a basket in front of the newsdesk.
One of the most memorable copy girls, Avril, once asked a colleague; "Aren't you the travel editor? Is there a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Benalmadena?"
She tutted when he didn't know.
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IT'S well known that there are streets in France, Australia and Iran named in honour of the hunger-striker Bobby Sands, whose fast until death in 1981 made him an international figure of heroic resistance.
But it's unfortunate that his earlier participation in one of the so-called 'dirty protests' in prison has apparently meant his name has been lent to something much less desirable. According to the French film Full Time showing at the Queens Film Theatre this week, "Un Bobby Sands" is the code hotel chambermaids use for a room that has been left in a shocking mess by guests.
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DID anyone consider, when naming the right wing dissidents of the Tory party 'National Conservatism', that the name sounded a bit similar to that outfit started by an Austrian chap back in the 1920s?
But then 'Cruella' Braverman seems pretty content to be part of the unthinkable. Enoch Powell would be perplexed to know that the person who most echoes his views on immigration is the daughter of immigrants.
Braverman appears to be on manoeuvres to pitch herself as a successor to Rishi Sunak, who could be forced out if they lose the next election. And some in his party seem to be making that prospect more of a reality – like Jacob Rees-Mogg, another star of that gathering last weekend.
He gave the game away when he admitted the Tories' introduction of voter ID was an attempt at suppressing the vote against, and agreed it was outright gerrymandering. And worse – not only did it not work, but it also turned away elderly voters who were most likely to be Conservatives.
