Thirty

I spotted this colourful confetti on the pavement alongside a Cheltenham pub today, and it set me thinking.

It's possibly the forgotten remains of a 30th wedding anniversary party. But maybe there had been a 30th birthday celebration? Or it might just possibly have been a party marking someone's 30 years in a particular job.

And suddenly my brain starting moving through the gears. Thirty years ago...thirty long years ago... what what I doing back then in 1980?

And I suddenly realised that exactly thirty years ago I was finishing college and starting my career in journalism. I was obviously meant to see this confetti.

How times have changed. In 1980 I became a trainee reporter on the weekly Kidderminster Times and Stourport News. We had over half a dozen reporters - twice as many as were producing copy today on the daily paper I work for.

A couple of years later I was working for the Chronicle and Echo in Northampton. They had more compositors than we have reporters today. (Compositors don't even exist now.) The editorial department had a letters editor, a copy-taster and a revise sub-editor among other specialist positions. I don't think the reporters of today have even heard of those last two posts.

When I was training at college I spent a lot of time producing copy on Sheffield's steel industry during its acrimonious strike. I also saw the coal industry close up.

They were both industries in sharp decline and I have to say that today's newspaper industry has the same pungent smell of decay.

On the positive side, the industry still has some of the spirit and desire to get to the truth.

But in these days of swingeing cutbacks, good stories are rare nuggets and survival is the name of the game. Sad days indeed.

I wonder if regional newspapers will exist at all 30 years from now?