Strive for the best, says O’Connor
BE honest in what you do and strive for the best.
This was the message from former staff member Ned O’Connor as The Fiji Times celebrates its 150th year anniversary.
Originally from Lagalevu, Nakasaleka in Kadavu the 71-year-old joined The Fiji Times in the mid-1960s and retired in 2005 after more than 40 years of service.
Mr O’Connor was a paste-up artist whose job was to cut and trim typeset copies and artwork to specified sizes. He described it in detail this week when we made a special trip to his Nabua home to interview the retired artist.
He said his job required him to apply adhesive, align artwork and typeset copies on boards following position marks and removing excessive adhesive from the board using scissors, an artist’s knife and drafting instruments.
“I was with The Fiji Times in the mid-60s during those years computers were not heard off,” he said.
“Back than we had to use type setting machines and they were operated by led.
“We had operators that operated these typesetting machines with copies of the report from the editorial room.
“When the typesetters had finished typing the stories we would collect it, put it in a still dish, the size of a Fiji Times page (A3). We would then get a copy of how the page would look and paste it on the bench that we worked on and then we’d work on whatever else the typesetters gave for us to work on.”
Mr O’Connor says his job was a challenging one because they had to be careful all the time as they were working on what the next day’s paper would actually look like.
“If we are not careful and drop one of those trays that’s been filled with led, we would get reprimanded. Collecting the led pieces itself was a humongous job.
“If you drop the tray you will have to collect all pieces and redo the pages.
“This went on until the company brought a new printing machine.
“When this new machine came in, everything changed so the typesetting machines were slowly phased out.
“As time went by the first set of computers came in they were relieved.
Those days the machines that got out the stories were called hot setting led and when this new computers came in they were called cold setting and the only dreadful thing about these new computers was the room they were kept in. It had to be kept in a cool room and most of us were not used to the cold..as it was freezing all the time.”
Mr O’Connor worked three to four days a week and began his day at 4pm ending it around 10:30pm.
He was one of the 12 paste-up artists that worked in the company during his years under the authority of Richard Lobendahn.
He advised the staff members to keep up the good and report nothing but the truth.
“Strive to better yourselves in today’s technology and be honest in your work.”
Strive to better yourselves in today’s technology and be honest in your work – Ned O’Connor