I started my working life as a "cub" reporter for the Norfolk and Suffolk Journal and Diss Express.

In 1954, at the tender age of 16, and in answer to an advertisement in the Diss Express I climbed a creaking wooden staircase at the Diss Publishing Company offices in Mere Street to attend an interview with the then editor, Harold Holker, in a smoke-filled Dickensian room.

I proudly emerged shortly afterwards having been taken on as a junior reporter.

At that time I was living in Harleston and had to commute to work by bicycle.

My job involved cycling around Diss and several villages to the west of the town collecting reports from the village correspondents and parish news from vicars, as well as attending fetes and funerals (collecting names at the church door). Needless to say I was pretty fit!

My experienced colleagues at that time were Janet Hollingsworth (from Eye, now Janet Chambers and still providing news for the Diss Express as town correspondent) and Brenda Luce.

Janet also got around by push-bike but Brenda was rather more sophisticated. Although she too had a bicycle, it had a small engine in the rear wheel.

One of my duties was to cover Gaze's livestock market. This involved reporting on the state of the market, the type of stock sold and the prices realised.

This assignment caused me great difficulty as I was unable to write shorthand and the market manager used to rattle off statistics at high speed, leaving me struggling.

I will be eternally grateful to Reg Baxter (I think he was a freelance journalist) who eventually came to my rescue, furnishing me each week with copies of his own market reports.

Mr Holker did not know of this arrangement and always seemed quite impressed with the quality of my reports.

Sam Pring was the print works manager during my time with the Diss Express and he would deliver copy newsprint to the reporters' room for us to proof-read.

This involved reading through all the advertisements, funeral and market reports, accounts of WI meetings and other pretty boring stuff, such as correcting mistakes for the compositors to rectify.

I find that even today, typographical errors in newspapers and books jump out at me.

I used to frequent Denny's cafe and my favourite food items were his sausage rolls and doughnuts. Sometimes, if I could afford it, I would pay a visit to Charlie Gardner's restaurant, not so much for the food, but in the hope that I might get a glimpse of his lovely daughter, Heather. Charlie was very protective of Heather and would "see off" any young would-be suitors!

I did, however, manage to penetrate Charlie's radar and make conversation with Heather on one or two occasions.

After I had been at Mere Street for a few months we were joined on the editorial staff by a red-haired gentleman by the name of Alan Crumpton. Alan and I became good friends and we had a common interest – big band music.