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» The Fossil
TERRY & GERRY
The Frome Fossil
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This month I have mostly been reading a bound volume of the Frome Standard for 1958. Here are some of the big stories: there’s a mega outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease; two dairy workers are fined for stealing cream; a retired Major-General fulminates against “dismal
Jimmies” who criticise defence spending; a new bowls pavilion opens in Selwood. It’s all kicking off. Most dramatically, a fireman from Melksham is forced to call in the local fire brigade when driving through Frome (he had thrown a fag end out of the front window, only for it to fly back in through the rear one and set fire to the car).
The joys of local newspapers are many and varied. Long ago, I worked in a vanishingly casual capacity for the dear old Bath Chronicle. I would bowl up to the office every Thursday lunchtime and deliver a thousand words of fuzzily typed book review, basking in the delusion that I was a real journalist. The chaotic newsroom with its blizzard of crumpled copy paper, the thundering antique presses, the louche badinage of the subs’ desks, the weighty calm of the editor’s office – all breathed an air of raffish romance to me.
Even better, my arrival usually coincided with a general exodus to the pub. We crammed into the snug of Broadley’s Dugout bar, drinking Bass and swapping facetious remarks with a changing cast of fellow hacks – the art critic, the drama critic, the rock music critic, the football reporter, the Radstock correspondent, the women’s page writer, the editor himself. On rare occasions we were joined by the prebestselling Terry Pratchett – even then a mythical figure – who worked in a garden shed on the office roof, writing advertising copy.
Some – like Terry – went on to higher things. But none forgot or underestimated their time at the Chronicle. Indeed, its backbone consisted of the loyal fixtures who were unambitious and irreplaceable. One such was Gerry Goodman, a reporter who worked there all his adult life. A walk through the city with him was a long one, as every other passerby stopped to greet him, swap anecdotes, whisper a tip or offer him a drink. He was a vintage local newsman, maybe a little too aged (and a little too fond of the booze) for some. Gerry regularly reported from the magistrates’ court, which eventually demanded that he be replaced. They said he smelled too bad.
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