Greater Dandenong councillor and Noble Park community crusader
THE Dandenong Journal in its heyday was regarded as the Age of local newspapers.
It was big and bulky and you couldn’t fit all the editions onto your bicycle, if you were a paper boy.
One of my sons was a Journal ’bikie’ for a while and shared the round with his friend. The papers came by truck and we stored them in our garage, so that they didn’t get wet.
About 30 years ago, I did some typesetting for the then Dandenong Journal, from 6pm to midnight – when dad came home from work, he minded the children and I went to work.
One of my jobs was the local junior football scores and given that we had some huge junior football teams across the city that was a big job – especially getting everyone’s name correct.
We worked varieties of shifts on big old clumsy typesetters, no comparison whatever to the equipment used today.
The Journal was always filled chock-a-block with local news, and Marg Stork (who is still there and famous for her old-fashioned typewriter) wrote community pieces.
As a complete aside, I started work at the Journal the day after I had given up smoking, and I am sure many people wondered why I came to work with a huge handbag of Lifesavers!
The Journal was regularly delivered and well subscribed to. There was always relevant, interesting and community news from the former councils of Dandenong and Springvale, where many community views were aired, letters to the editor, the sport and an enormous real estate page.
I wish the new publication well in its endeavours to inform the local community.
