The Chronicle

A SHADOW drifted across the far end of the long, dark passageway and Don Bentley stopped, surprised that someone else should have been down there in the printing works at this hour. Bentley strained his eyes to identify the shape in the near darkness, at the far end of the passageway where the light from a single light bulb at its entrance barely penetrated. The shadow moved out of sight and Bentley called out, softly at first as if not wanting to disturb the silence down … [Read more...] about The spirit of the press room

Donald Knowler celebrates more than half a century in the newspaper business. He started work as a messenger boy in Fleet Street in September 1963 before writing his first words six months later on the newspaper that gave him his start in journalism, the Woking News and Mail, in Surrey. He usually looks back, and forward, through his alter ego, Don Bentley, but in two articles first published on the Tasmanian Times website lamented the demise of the office pub.   The … [Read more...] about Doors close on the past

It’s not much to look at, the beermat from the former journalists’ watering hole, Montgomery’s in central Hobart. It’s not as striking as the fiery red one from the Coopers brewery in Adelaide, with a beer barrel at its centre, or the shield-shaped one from Fullers in London, in ochre, advertising a bitter called London Pride. The Montgomery’s beermat is in monochrome, with a simple line drawing of the pub on the corner of Macquarie and Argyle streets, as unpretentious and … [Read more...] about Beermat of memory and loss

Bruce Leyland picked up the Chronicle style book, looked briefly at its ink-stained and worn cover and tossed it into the rubbish bin. Another piece of detritus from the past, the flotsam and jetsam of a life spent in newspapers, a life coming to an abrupt end. Leyland had been at his desk all morning, clearing out the set of draws and cupboard that supported the desk’s flat, polished top on which sat a computer keyboard and monitor. An ink well at one corner of the desk … [Read more...] about Going out in style

Don Bentley was one edition behind the times, lost in a world of newsprint and ink. The term “new media” was as foreign to him as the name they now gave the swaying trams in Melbourne. What was it? Urban mass transport? Light-rail? He didn’t care, and he didn’t care when people he knew in journalism, those who had embraced these new ideas, spoke of “dead tree media”. Newspapers could never die, they were dependable and certain like the wonderful old No. 35 trams that still … [Read more...] about Rivers of gold