Drew Cochrane: Former Wee Paper editor's weekly column

They call it karma nowadays.

Commercial Studies was the course, and it taught me to gain Pitman's shorthand at 120 words a minute, and touch-typing, both skills which still assist me in my long writing career.

While I still regret choosing geography over history at secondary school, I was a lone wolf in schoolboy clothing as, to be honest, I had no parental support and advice during my formative education teenage years.

However, it was obviously meant to be opening a door, as it did, into the world of newspapers.

I also think that being selected, for no particular reason nor background, to be the The Mikado in the Gilbert and Sullivan school show switched on a light for amateur theatre. Walking on to a stage with an audience lit a spark in my soul. I had a sense of belonging which I like to think I have retained after a hundred performances, not to mention my weekly show on this page.

All of this occurred to me as I realised that this week was the 50th anniversary - and more - of the time I left school during sixth year studies to start as the cub reporter on my local paper, the Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald.

I can still see the teenage Drew wandering through the line of clattering, chattering Linotype machines providing the moulds or 'slugs' for the hot metal department which, in those ancient days, imprinted the news and adverts on to the pages of a newspaper which would have cost no more than 10p.

I still recall with fondness the story of the woman who phoned me up to say that she was the person whose house burned down...and she was still fuming.

My first wage was £7 a week, collected in a brown envelope at the end of work, and the union negotiated expenses of a few shillings for food and bus travel if we were working out of the office. And you had to work on Christmas Day back then.

Eventually you were given Christmas off as a holiday but I managed, somehow, to work for 40 odd years without taking a week off sick. You laboured on even if you had the flu which, apparently, is now called Covid.

Okay, I was reporting on such gripping tales as a cat stuck up a tree in a year when Harold Wilson was Labour leader but Ted Heath (remember him, madam) won the 1970 election for the Conservatives.

I spent my last half-crown - about 12p - in the pub over a pint and a packet of crisps as it stopped being legal tender.

With my more than ample shorthand the paper could send me anywhere to take a verbatim note, and one of my first assignments was to cover a public inquiry over whether Chevron should build an oil refinery at Hunterston, opposite Cumbrae. It was turned down. 

Every week I reported on the town councils of Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Stevenston, Kilwinning and even West Kilbride which had a district council. I can tell you the level of discussion and debate was far superior to anything you hear in the Scottish Parliament, which is, of course, a glorified toon cooncil and a dreadful waste of money.

My first year in journalism coincided with Paul McCartney announcing the end of The Beatles,  Mick Jagger being fined £200 for using cannabis, and the first ever Glastonbury Festival with Tyrannosaurus Rex as top act - in front of a crowd of 1500.

Yes, folks, it's that time of year when you start reminiscing, and you know for sure that every day is a gift.

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Thought for the Week: Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.

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Pat Rall, who died earlier this year (Image: Newsquest)

This Friday, the old lads of Largs Walking Football Club will be staging the inaugural Pat Rall Memorial Trophy.

Wee Pat was my right-hand man at the weekly sessions for guys in their 60s and 70s up at Inverclyde Sports Centre where, after giving up playing, he became kitman and a strict referee, but always with a twinkle in his eye. 

He was also a stalwart of Largs Thistle at Barrfields Park.

Pat died recently with prostate cancer and all of the proceeds from the event will go to the Scottish Prostate Cancer charity, thanks to the support of sportscotland at Inverclyde, and the generous caterers. 

I'm sure he will be with us in spirit. I'll listen out for his whistle.