Snapshot of the past

This week’s Snapshot is a look back into the history photographs of The Gazette.

This photograph was taken in 1969 of Gazette front office staff (from left): Judith Hopkins (McAllister), Maryanne Schreyer (Hawken), Annette Comber (Woodhouse) and Kaye Smith (Stewart).

They are sitting on the upper deck of the printing press, a Cossar press which printed The Gazette until the early 1970s.

The flatbed press printed a total of 16 pages in one run. Usually the first run (the middle section) was printed on Friday afternoon followed by the second run (the main part of the paper) on Tuesday morning.

The paper was usually 32 pages, but if it increased in size another run was printed on Mondays.

In those days The Gazette ‘hit the street’ on Tuesday afternoons.

For many locals it was literally hot off the press as the papers were collated and distributed as they were printed.

The first Tuesday in November was a special day. Staff would listen to the Melbourne Cup on the radio and stop the press to add a paragraph with details of the winner, making it one of the first papers in Australia to publish the cup results.

The Cossar press was regarded as a very reliable printing press for small newspaper operations.

This press worked well until a major breakdown in the late ‘60s. The paper had to be printed off site for many months while awaiting a part from overseas.

It was not used after the early 1970s when a press was built in Morwell to service the Gippsland region.

Local resident Bill Slegers added further information to a Snapshot appearing on October 17 capturing the Warragul Police Station and residence c.1915.

He said the old police station bricks are now located on a building at 192 Burke St, Warragul.