Guild Gazette

This was the student newspaper at Liverpool University and it came out once a fortnight. I joined it in my final year, first as the pop music correspondent and eventually as Assistant Editor. We were lucky in two respects.

Firstly, we were subject to censorship in that all copy had to be submitted to the Vice-Chancellor prior to publication. I don’t recall him interfering much, if not at all. However we were registered as a newspaper so we could legitimately claim to be Britain’s only censored newspaper. This we exploited with a banner across the top of the front page proclaiming ‘Britain’s only censored newspaper.’ So we had a campaign to flaunt.

Secondly, we were very fortunate to have an editor who had previously worked on a proper newspaper, the Huddersfield Advertiser. Paul brought in professionalism to writing and editing and we all learned a lot from him. He changed the layout to a tabloid and modelled it on the Daily Mirror. Many looked down on the Mirror in the early 60’s: many still do. But then as he pointed out, the Mirror was the newspaper of the working classes and had to get its message home simply but with a punch. Think we did that.

He also brought colour, just orange, on the front and back pages. That meant two passes through the printing machine but it also meant that we could charge a little more for coloured adverts on the back page and that covered the costs. Our advertisers never realised that since we were using orange on the front page then orange on the back page had no on-cost.

Since the paper came out fortnightly and there were no PC’s in those days and we all had lectures to attend, we were very busy. This meant that we had to get the copy written, the photographs collected and all down to the printers very quickly. Then we had to collect the galley prints and proof read them as quickly as possible in order to meet the final print deadline.

It was all worth it for in 1965, we won ‘The Best Student Newspaper of the Year’ award and the Vice-Chancellor removed his censorship.

Maybe, if I had paid more attention to my studies, then I would have got a better degree. But then, I would probably have had a different career path and I doubt that that would have been as much fun as the one I have had. And anyway, Guild Gazette was an experience.

(Our Student's Union had a capacity of around 2 to 3,000 for Saturday night dances so that meant we could hire pretty much anyone to play there. As pop music correspondent, my job was to interview them in the bar during the interval. I even had an expense allowance to buy them a pint each. How else do you get to have the likes of the Hollies and the Animals to yourself?)