Sir – I arrived at the Welwyn Times early 1959 and at that time the office was above our long gone cinema in Parkway. Could write many adventures what the reporting staff and myself had in these very early days. For a change my words will be to do with production and not photography. One thing that I do miss is not being able to have a display of my snaps in the window of Cresta Silks which at that time was part of the Welwyn Stores.
I think the unions would have had a field day because when there was a problem with the chief photographer who took me on I was promoted to block maker. This meant I took the pictures and then with the aid of a Fairchild Scangraver Williams had to etch the image on to plastic sheets. Mr Dalton just said you will work it out. the pictures were an absolute mess and the outcome was a visit by the Fairchild engineer who was not at all happy seeing this stranger on his machine. He gave me a few lessons and all was well again. Then came the day that Charles Dalton changed our newspaper forever. As far as I can recall he went off to Canada for a working holiday and came back with a new method of printing called Webb Offset. This was the time we moved into 23 Broadwater Road and all being top secret and even passwords to get into the building and I kid you not.
Looking back I guess it was the absolute fear of the unions. From this new home I would say the print world was shaken up somewhat. For in a very short time we were printing full colour picures in the Welwyn Times and the first to do so in Great Britain and the date being 1960s. On the front page for Friday April 1 1966 we had a picture of Pauline Playford from Eastor, WGC who had just been voted Miss QE2. as the hospital have not had a further competition she must be the Glamour Queen with the longest reign. Oh in passing the paper in those days was priced at sixpence.
One thing that annoyed me was a programme on Radio 4 back in August 2005 when Sue MacGregor reunites the team assembled by Eddie Shah that launched TOAY, Britains firsts colour newspaper in 1985. National or not I still say we were the first. I did attempt to put the lady right but proved to be a waste of time, that’s the BBC for you. But we did appear on television on a feature programme and we were all feeling so happy for Charles Dalton. Before I go one more thing for the history books is how we printed a copy of Hungary newspaper and in minature. It was the time of Hungarian uprising and the newspaper was dropped from an aircraft flying over Hungary. Watch this place for more revelations.
Denis Williams
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