The wretched news that the old Daily Dispatch building at 35 Caxton Street had been gutted was distressing for me but not wholly unexpected. After all, it had served as a wool storage depot before it became the home of the newspaper, the printing presses and the staff for more than 100 years. Its ancient timber must have been thoroughly oil-soaked from the amount of pelts stored there in the heyday of the wool trade in East London.
On September 30, I retired from the Daily Dispatch. I came into the Dispatch group of companies in 1984 when I was interviewed and appointed by Fred Croney, an assistant Dispatch editor, to work on the Komani Representative under MD Charles Beningfield. Journalism is about telling people’s stories in ways that cause audiences to pause and take note.