Well-known local photographer and valued member of The Journal team, Dave Sherborne, has hung up his high-vis after many years of loyal service to the newspaper.

At Christmas, we gave Dave a send-off, presenting him with, amongst other things, a framed front page of the first ever issue of The Journal, printed on 26th June 1980 – the only issue Dave missed. He remembers his time with us: “I joined the team for the second issue of the paper, on 1st July 1980; back then, the four page, A4 sheet Journal was mainly adverts for houses for sale. Its creation was prompted by strike action in the industry, and Fosseway Press were approached by potential advertisers to see if we could start another local newspaper.

“Steve Shipley and Roy Crook were the Directors of Fosseway Press, which printed The Journal, and asked me to take photographs and call into shops to collect adverts. As The Journal became larger and more popular, the more adverts we could collect, the more pages we could print.

“At this time, I was living in Paulton; my wife Margaret and I ran ‘The Cottage Shop’, where I started my photographic business. We also had a delivery of Journals by Steve – I can remember once, just after midnight, he delivered the papers, banging on the door, then running away as usual, before I could catch him – but he didn’t get very far, because at the same time, a police car came through the High Street on patrol, and stopped him – bringing him back to the shop to check with me what he was doing!

“As the years went on, The Journal became larger, producing eight pages. This was taking longer to print, fold, etc.

“At the time, it was printed by Letterpress on a Heidelberg cylinder press, and using hard metal type to set was taking much longer.

“I had worked at Purnells as a Litho Camera Operator, so, having experience of Litho, Steve asked me to check out Cameras with the intention of changing to Litho, and using typesetting to produce the pages to make it easier. We then printed on two Litho Rotaprint machines.

“Many late nights followed when we started to produce twelve pages; hand-fed folding machines were used, sometimes into the early hours. I was now spending more and more time at the office doing many jobs; including reading, checking page layouts, taking photographs and reporting.

“Mid to late-1980s, we moved to Frome Road – The Journal continued to expand, producing more and more pages, investing in collating machines and delivery vans; with staff changes, management changes and eventually, the newspaper side was bought by Tindle Newspapers, who own many papers all over the country.

“Photography changed to digital, with no need to develop and print photographs. The paper was now regularly at 28 pages, rising to 32 regularly.

“I was now helping to deliver the newspapers – with a larger van, larger area, (over ninety drops and covering 140 miles each week).

“So, at the age of nearly 75, and after a slight heart scare, I decided to scale down my workload and finally retire.

“I had some 36 years with The Journal, making many friends and having new experiences.

“I shall miss Becky, the Editor, and the team, but will keep in contact and wish them every success for the future.”

We would all like to wish Dave a very happy retirement and a big thank you for his long and loyal service with us. He will be very much missed.

The Journal continues to grow and expand – our team will be moving to Paulton House (opposite Wickes) and in the old Focus offices from next week, having outgrown our old space. The future is bright, and we are all very

excited!

Our new address will be: Paulton House, Old Mills, Paulton, Bristol, BS39 7SX, with a new phone number from 14th January: 01761 258030. Our email address will stay the same: [email protected]

We also welcome Lee Woolridge to the delivery side of the newspaper – Lee has been helping Dave with deliveries for a little while now, so you may have seen him out and about!