My tour of duty with the Derby Telegraph has been a long one
IFOUND myself nose-deep in cuttings this week, which sent me into a whirlwind of Derby news nostalgia all thanks to a new colleague. He messaged me on Wednesday saying he had interviewed a woman about a story who told him one of her relatives was once on the front page of the Derby Telegraph.
Despite it being more than 13 years ago, I instantly recognised who she was and why she was the subject of our splash on that Monday morning back in 2008.
Because I went to her pub and interviewed her, where she told me how just hours before she had fought off a mob of a dozen or so young men who burst into it armed with weapons.
After finishing work I delved deep into a cupboard where I keep my old cuttings of front-page stories and memorable tales I want to keep which I have written over the many years I have worked here.
After a search that took a good half an hour or so, I finally found what I was looking for, took a photograph of it on my phone and sent it to my new colleague.
But that was only the start of matters that evening because what happened was that finding said story of derring-do and youthful savagery led to me to seek out more old yarns that I have penned (or rather typed) from all those years ago.
The first thing that struck me was that we were still known as the Evening Telegraph back then, as some of you may even still refer to us as.
A roll call of names of (one current but almost exclusively
former) reporters who worked for us back then saw me contact one of them to see how he is.
He’s doing rather well for himself as it happens, he works in communications at 10 Downing Street.
And I laughed heartily with him at one of his stories which sat alongside one of my own cuttings.
“I remember going out on that and interviewing those people,” he recalled 13 years on from the lofty heights of the home of our Prime Minister.
As I searched further into my files I found at least half a dozen frontpage stories I simply had and have no recollection of writing at all but will have been cut out and kept by the person they are about as a historical keepsake in much the same way as I have.
Perhaps that says more about the passage of time and the millions of words I have submitted over my time working for what is now known as Derbyshire Live to many.
Markedly, considering the international political landscape this week, I found all of my cuttings of the stories I wrote when I was embedded with Derbyshire soldiers in Afghanistan during their tours of duty in Helmand Province.
I hope all of those who I interviewed in that dusty heat many years ago are doing well, whatever twists and turns their lives have taken over the passage of time.
I’ll leave the last word in this weekend’s column to said new colleague, who would have been under the age of 10 when I wrote the story that started this wave of nostalgia.
“When I was talking to this woman this week,” he said, “I thought: Martin will know.”
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
I hope all of those who I interviewed in that dusty heat many years ago are doing well, whatever twists and turns their lives have taken.