Okay, so they won't be letting off fireworks over the Tyne Bridge, but today is a celebration of sorts for me as it marks ten years of my Saturday Column in the Newcastle Journal.I was given the column shortly after starting work as the paper's political editor in 1997, and retained it despite standing down from that role in 2004 to spend more time with my family - yes, that really was the reason in my case!
I will always be grateful to The Journal for giving me this break. I had written light-hearted Diary columns before, but it was The Journal which gave me my first chance to do a serious, big picture commentary on the week's political events and I would like to think I found a bit of a niche there.
You can read this week's column in full on the Companion Blog HERE
7 comments:
Congratulations Paul.
Well done Paul. It might be of interest that I started my journalistic career on the Newcastle Journal back in September 1968. I always liked the paper and it is great that regional mornings still survive.
Mike Smithson
Here's to another ten years.
Ten years of columns and *every single one* has been about the Brown/Blair relationship ..... ;)
1997...I bet it all seemed rather different back then.
Any chance of digging out your very first column?
Yes, congratulations Paul,
I always thought the column was the best thing of its kind I'd seen in the regional press and would not be out of place in a national. (even if I never said as much to you while we were working together!)
Very kind Stephen. I know of at least one, fairly famous national newspaper columnist who has lifted stuff from it!
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