By Jules Weldrick, Sub-Editor

After his popular first entry sub-editor Jules Weldrick continues his occasional Blogs looking back over his eventful career...

FOLLOWING my stint as a messenger boy at the Daily Express, I began my first job in journalism proper as a cub reporter on a Salford weekly paper. After settling in I was allocated my local "patch" to cover.

I had no means of transport other than using the buses, and for the first six months became very fit foot-slogging around my various contacts, which would include vicars, councillors, traders and the odd publican (although I was too young to drink, of course!).
All our stories would be typed up on different coloured paper denoting various areas of the city so they could be easily collated by the print workers at our head office in Macclesfield, where I would go once a week with the editor to read and correct page proofs.
With no in-house training available in those days, one of the first things I had to do was enrol for a shorthand course at a local college. Imagine it: being the only lad sat in a classroom full of 17-year-old girls! It was tough, but it had to be done.
During my three years on the paper I got to cover sport for the first time, mainly rugby league, and as it turned out this proved useful training for the future. I also covered a number of royal visits to the city and can remember my mum being highly delighted when I returned home clutching a freebie of smellies after a visit by the Queen and Prince Philip to a well-known soap factory.
As I became more competent in the job I began to cover magistrates court hearings, police press conferences and the like, which was a big step up from reporting on stories like the city's annual Whit Walks, which would generally be an endless list of people's names from the various organisations taking part.

I also became the proud owner of a brand new scooter thanks to my Gran, who used some of her retirement money from her nursing job to put her favourite (only) grandson on the road. But after a particularly cold winter I decided when I turned 17 that it was time to go into debt and bought something with four wheels and a roof!
It was about this time that I first met up with Jimmy Savile at a nightclub in my patch. He was looking for publicity for his soon to become famous charity runs, and it led to me mingling with the stars. One of Jimmy's DJ mates was opening his own club and wanted a photo of himself with the Beatles to have enlarged and placed in his club. Arrangements were made for myself and a photographer friend of mine to attend a Beatles concert in Manchester and I got to meet them briefly during the interval. My overriding memory is the noise generated by hundreds of screaming girls, with dozens of them carried out to the foyer after fainting!
Thanks to Jimmy I also got to appear on Top of the Pops when it was broadcast in the Dickinson Road studios in Manchester, and according to my Dad I was seen on telly half a dozen times strutting my stuff, with Cilla Black the top act on the night ('ave an heart, I didn't know who was going to be on!).
Another of the more interesting jobs came when the editor asked for a volunteer to cover the final night when time was called on eight pubs before they were all demolished in one go as part of the old Hankey Park regeneration (Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole territory). Needless to say I put my name forward, but for some strange reason I couldn't find my notes on the last two drinking holes I called in!
The time finally came when I decided to move on, and after three years with the paper I handed in my notice to move to an evening newspaper. On my final day I decided to go to Manchester at lunchtime to celebrate my leaving, and never got back to the office where, unbeknownst to me, all my colleagues had gathered for a farewell presentation and a few drinks - but I never showed up! They had to take the cufflinks back to Woolies the next day to get their money back, and needless to say it was one of my more embarrassing moments when I called back in to see them a few weeks later.
Having stayed in one job for three years I then moved four times in the next two years, got my first daily paper front page splash, met my sporting idol George Best, covered cup finals at Wembley and changed my name to Bob Black.
But that's another story...

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