Living History

The Photographer

I got my first job as a copy boy in the photographic department of a major newspaper in 1959. I got the job ahead of the other copy boys in editorial who wanted to move to photographic because my Dad's boss on the farm where we lived knew the owner of the newspaper's publisher.

I soon became a cadet photographer. Some of my duties were unusual, like transferring messages about assignments from the Pictorial Editor to the photographers who happened to use a nearby hotel bar as their office.

Another daily job was to deliver photos for the next issue to the newspaper's bosses to give their approval.

I was on a small wage, 4.6 shillings at the time. I was able to loan photographers 10/- or so at a daily interest of 1/-. At one time I had no accommodation, so I lived in the darkroom at the newspaper, sleeping, showering and eating for some weeks. I used to hitch a ride back to my home town on Friday nights about midnight on the paper truck, then walk along the railway to where my parents lived on a property, sometimes having to hang under the bridge while a train went over.

A mate and I used to use rubber bands to fire clips from the newspaper building over the synagogue roof to attract the attention of the girls working in the building next door.

One day the newspaper's boss was on his way up in the lift and was particularly upset with the attitude of a boy in the lift, so he fired him on the spot and gave him an undisclosed amount of cash. The boy left the lift quite happily as he didn't even work there.

A photographer known for his drunken outbursts lost his temper one day, went to the roof of the building and threw his very large 5x4 Speed Graphic camera into the street, luckily missing pedestrians and cars.

Bill, Southern Highlands, New South Wales

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