By Bonnie McKinnon,
Retired Haldimand Press Employee
To The Haldimand Press
As I am writing this story I am in my 82nd year. That means that I spent half my life working for Bob Hall at The Haldimand Press. When I started (in 1975) Bob had just amalgamated the Cayuga (Haldimand Advocate) and Hagersville (Hagersville Press) papers together, which would then be known as The Haldimand Press.
I had never used an electric typewriter, let alone a digital typesetter. Bob used to tease me later when I needed an envelope for something and I would ask him to type it for me, because I did not know the first thing about an electric typewriter. I went to work after graduating from high school in the office at Stelco in Hamilton. We used manual typewriters and no dictaphone machines, but shorthand was the way you transcribed a letter. We also had to dress “appropriately”, which meant no slacks or track pants. After leaving Stelco, I became a “stay-at-home” mom. I think Bob hired me because I could still type.
My first encounter at The Haldimand Press was with a Compugraphic linotype machine. This meant typing articles which were submitted by Press customers. The machine let you type one line at a time according to the width of the columns used by The Press at that time. The type was transferred onto processed paper into a cassette at the side of the machine. The cassette was then fed into a developer and came out as type. You had to remember to take the cassette out of the developer and put it back when you started to type again. To my horror, during that first week many times I would be typing away and realize I had forgotten to put the cassette back into the machine and the paper was making its way down the side of the typesetter. Time to start all over again.
I was lucky that even though his appearance was gruff, Bob had the patience to put up with my constant mishaps. Bob’s sister Mary had the job of reading what I had typed and if a mistake had been made, she would very carefully put a line through the mistake. After being edited, the corrections were made one line at a time. The exacto knife and waxer were the tools of the trade. The corrections were put through the waxer and cut up, one line at a time, and pasted on the edited article. Mary would peruse the articles and make up a heading and write it on paper, including the length of the article. A very slow process indeed. The amount of type we had would determine how many pages were in The Press that week. Edna Grinyer worked on the front desk, meeting customers and taking their bill payments, all done by hand. The only time that I know of The Haldimand Press being one day late was my first week.
Bob would start to put the pages together on pasteup sheets, which were the size of the actual pages of The Haldimand Press and lined according to column widths. The waxed type would be transferred to the pasteup sheets and, one page at a time, The Haldimand Press issue took shape. The photographs that had been taken either by Bob or Pat Mackereth, who was our reporter at that time, were developed by Bob in the dark room. Only Bob was familiar with that procedure. They were hung up and dried in a cabinet and trimmed by the exacto knife and waxed and pasted on the appropriate page.
An example of a compugraphic typesetting machine Bonnie used during her early days with The Press.
Advertisements were constructed line by line and again cut up and pasted on a predetermined sized sheet. The headlines were done on a different machine and cut up and pasted on as well.
Long hours – sometimes on the day before publishing we never left the office until after 10 p.m. My first week, it was into the wee hours of the morning. I always felt sorry for Mary as she lived in Hamilton and no matter how late or what kind of weather, she would travel home to her apartment and return the next day. Mary and Bob sometimes let their sibling rivalry filtrate into the office.
Bob would take the pasteup sheets to Brantford at that time to be made into negatives and printed. Long wait … then the papers were brought back to the Cayuga office where Bob and a couple of his buddies would put address labels on by hand and then he would deliver them to each post office. Sometimes it would be three or four in the morning before Bob and “old blue” as he called his truck would get home and the process would begin all over for the next issue. He jokingly referred to himself as the oldest paperboy in Haldimand.
After some deliberation, a new machine was purchased. Good news – it would allow you to see approximately four lines of type, but the same cassette process took place. Bob’s philosophy was that The Haldimand Press was a ‘good news’ paper. No names were given in police reports. We relied mostly on individual contributions from subscribers for our news and no one solicited advertisements, they were brought or phoned into either the Cayuga or Hagersville offices. No copy was submitted electronically. Bob would run back and forth from the Cayuga office to the Hagersville office, picking up lunch from Laura’s on his return!
In my latter years with The Press, we really went modern. Bob decided we needed computers. Katherine (Huson) Hedley and I sat facing each other with our computers back-to-back. Katherine did mostly news type and I began constructing ads. Wow were we modern! Still used pasteup sheets and exacto knives to chop up the type. At Christmas time, the Christmas edition usually saw a sliced finger or two. Christmas dinner at our house became quite an ordeal trying to peel potatoes with your hand or fingers taped up. Trying to hurry was not the best answer or if your knife wasn’t sharp the type ripped.
Bob started doing the page negatives. After developing, we would scan the negatives and if there were any smudges or marks from an unsharp knife, they were covered up with a paintbrush and red paint to ensure the pages were clean and easy to read.
We did our own proofreading at that time because Mary had passed on. Darlene (Anderson) Pruder manned the front office and did proofreading. Bob was still putting in the long hours because he was constantly attending events all over the county, taking pictures, and doing press releases. Kirk Brown was hired and lightened Bob’s load somewhat. Kirk did not have any part in the physical makeup of the paper and his articles, etc. were all submitted in his own handwriting.
Just like today, computers get updated all the time. The Press office computers were upgraded to bigger screens and able to produce different type sizes and typefaces known as fonts. Because of publishing times, neither Katherine nor I ever had a “holiday Monday”. Most times it was just another working day. When my computer screen and technology were upgraded, the advertisements were put together and even the pages were done all by computer. The front office was equipped with a customer addressing system also.
We were often asked if students could come and tour the office. When the teachers were told that the newspaper was not printed in Hagersville, it was a big letdown. The Press was printed 50 times a year. We had one week of holidays in the summer and one week at Christmas. Bob loved the horseraces and when he took time off it had mostly to do with the races and Katherine and I would take the negatives to the printer and wait for the papers, load them up, and deliver them. That was always filled with a lot of laughs and setbacks.
One of the most memorable accomplishments was the printing of “Down Memory Lane”. This was a history of Hagersville. There were only so many books printed and we never realized how popular the book would be. I think there are very few copies left at this time. Bob and I spent many evenings after our regular workday in order to finalize “Down Memory Lane”.
I can’t believe that in four decades, we went from typing one line at a time to making PDFs of the pages and sending them electronically to the printer. Bob was certainly a very forward-thinking editor and was always upgrading, except for our office conditions. The cement floors and drafty building still exists today. Heaters and fans were the norm for keeping us comfortable.
I was hospitalized and could not continue my life at The Press, but Katherine stepped up to the plate and all was well with the team until Bob’s health waned and he was forced to sell in 2014. Katherine continued with The Press for another couple of years before moving onto a new opportunity.
The Haldimand Press enabled me to meet many people in the county and to this day, I am so happy when someone says to me: “I remember you from The Press office!”
