Once I completed my pre-entry course I found it fairly easy
to get myself a job in Lincoln on the Chronicle. I’d secured a place before the
end of the year and I even had chance to work on the Lincolnshire Show for a
day before I started. It was a way to
meet some of my new colleagues and to find my way into the job in a relaxed
kind of atmosphere. Not to mention chance to try lots of great food and drink
produced in the county and to get my feet muddy. It was massive fun, and I didn’t have to do
very much. Just follow round one of the others and go with them to cover
various tings to do with cows.
I didn’t know about the parade of the beasts back then.
Apparently they walk some of the finest animals around a ring on one day and
the judges pick the ones they think are ‘best’ for some reason. Then the ‘winners’
are taken off to the slaughterhouse to be killed and brought back to the showground the following day and be shown off as meat. Yes, I know that’s what
beef cattle are for. And yes, I’m partial to a bit of steak when I can afford
it, but I’m not used to meeting my meat, so to speak. Or at least I wasn’t
then.
Douglas Adams did a bit about that in one of the Hitchhiker
books. He probably went to an agricultural show before he write it. One of the
Doctors Who played the cow in the TV series, I remember. I can remember he, or
it, offered Arthur Dent a piece of liver. “Should be lovely and tender by now.
I’ve been force feeding myself for ages.” Arthur declined. I felt a little like that
myself at the time.
So I was taken on at the Linolnshire Chronicle, initially
based at the Waterside North offices in the city centre, as a junior reporter.
We had seven editions and I was responsible for one of the northern ones, so I
got North Kesteven Council in my folio as well as the Minster and castle. Back
then the castle wasn’t quite the tourist attraction it is today. Back then it
was a working court house. (still is, a bit of it.) where I went to cover inquests.
The coroner’s court was in the bit that’s now the souvenir shop, if you ever go
and visit. The view out of the window was stunning and I’d often stare out in
the more boring bits, and look at the glorious Virginia creeper on the crown
court building at the other end of the castle grounds. You could see it turn from light green to dark
green and gradually to a stunning, rich red as the seasons progressed from
spring through summer to autumn. Magical.
It’s odd the memories you keep,isn’t it?
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