The day I received the phone call to say I’d got the job probably saved my life.
Whatever qualities I had in the first place had long since left me, my confidence was shot, I possessed no desire or enthusiasm to continue. All I could think was ‘what is the point?’ I had twice tested that thought to the limit.
I was working in a plastics factory, the machine hot material burning my hands as I recycled the waste I ripped off spools, air freshener containers and ballcocks, the shifts destroying evenings when my friends were out on the town, the little wins other workers got from dishing out bollockings to remind you that you were only a junior employee torching any self-respect I may have had.
There were nice people too, really nice, people struggling to make ends meet on exceptionally poor wages that forced them to use their weekends to work overtime, but my tendency in my nine months there was to listen to the demons, not to appreciate the battles of others.
There had been an advert for a position as a trainee journalist with the Craven Herald & Pioneer, my local paper. I summoned up the energy to apply and was surprised to get an interview, but not as surprised as I was to receive the phone call offering me the position and confirming that I would start with a 20-week training course in Hastings.
Someone made the point that the other favoured candidate had put in a better application by submitting his CV in the form of a newspaper. Luckily, the Craven Herald didn’t go in for flash so I got the job, which I almost managed to cock up by not obtaining my 100wpm shorthand in the allotted time, but thanks to the deputy editor who came in early in the mornings to help me, I got there in the end.
Downs then ups, a time on top of the hill, a tumble down or two, a spell in the ditch and a gradual climb back – journalism is never easy or straightforward and there are way too many involved who possess a ridiculous sense of entitlement gifted to them by their backgrounds and connections.
There are insurmountable outside forces, forcing you against your will, twisting and turning, playing with minds. I became stronger and learned to overcome those who sought to damage the industry for their own gain, though the weaknesses allowed gaps for which I couldn’t summon enough positive thought to close. You don’t win that battle and they don’t care.
It ended for me – journalism, I mean – in November 2024, when the self-interests of the company in power became impossible to fight.
I’ve recently had a difficult time mentally, and thinking of that phone call from the then Craven Herald editor Jack Heald enables me to appreciate the incredible situations I found myself in as a journalist, but… and there’s always a but… there’s the phone call that ended it and means those things will never happen again.
In reality they had already gone, but replacing them is proving harder than I ever thought it would.