To mark the 195th anniversary of The Sydney Morning Herald, various stars of the newspaper have been recounting their experiences – of interviewing prime ministers, of photographing in war zones and of chasing down corruption. But what about those of us who were often assigned to the lighter side of things? Surely, we have triumphs to report?

My best story idea, published in 1988, involved the old Holden ute owned by the Herald’s legendary TV writer Doug Anderson. It was the year in which the British had mounted a special display as part of the Royal Easter Show. Among the exhibits: a Rolls-Royce sitting on four Wedgwood teacups. The British thought the gullible Aussies would swoon over the superiority and quality of all things from the “mother country” – the weight of the luxurious car (2.5 tonnes) proving the strength of their fine bone china.

I’d always been poor at science, but even I knew this was just a trick of physics. The pressure was all downwards, so it didn’t take much for the cups not to break.

And so, as one of the paper’s junior editors, I arranged for a mechanic to put Doug’s 1970 FC Holden ute on a hoist, gingerly winching the vehicle back to earth so that it ended up perched on four upturned Vegemite jars. Hurrah! Not a bad science story and a poke in the eye for the duplicitous poms. Alas, no Walkley Award was forthcoming, but it stirred my patriotic heart.

I started working at the Herald in 1922. At least, that’s what it felt like. Stories were pounded out on large typewriters, using a perforated pad of pages, interleaved with carbon paper. By this means, eight copies were created of each story, to be distributed to editors, subeditors and interstate bureaus. After the subs had done their worst – “Glover, do you know any grammar at all?” – the stories were sent, via pneumatic tube, to the floor below. At that point gruff printers would pound out the story once more, this time on Linotype machines, creating lines of lead type, complete with small, upraised letters. These were then screwed into a wooden frame, anointed with ink, and pressed against rolls of newsprint.

It was technology that had been first used in Australia in the 1890s.

In the 15 years after I joined – my start date, in truth, was January 1983 – everything changed. The typewriters gave way to computer terminals, and the pneumatic tubes were decommissioned. To begin with, the new technology was so unstable that every few moments an anguished cry would emanate from one corner or the other of the Herald’s huge newsroom. Another poor journo had just lost their whole story. We became adept at rapidly retyping from memory.

The printing presses, though, remained in action. One floor above, in the newsroom, you could feel the vibration as they sprang into action each night. Once I even got to run downstairs and yell “stop the presses”. Well, not quite. The permitted phrase was: “Please urgently replace the Page 1 plates.” It was 1987, a bit after midnight, and Pat Cash had just won Wimbledon.

At the end of the night, you’d exit the building via the dock, where trucks were lined up, the bundled newspapers being chucked through the air, caught, and then stacked on the back of each truck. Once a year, on the night the HSC results came out, there’d be scores of school students down there, buying still-warm copies direct from the drivers: a once-a-year bonus for the truckies. The students would then stand in the street outside, battling the midnight gloom, trying to pick out their names and results.

We used words that are still familiar today, but we used them rather more literally. When we “pinned” a copy, we’d use a pin. When we “cc’d” a copy, it was an actual carbon copy. And when we put a copy in a mailbox, we used, well, a mailbox.

I refuse to become too nostalgic. The paper has far more readers now than it did then. Online, the news is updated constantly, not with the once-daily instalments of my time. If an Australian wins Wimbledon, the Herald subscriber will receive a news alert on their phone, and a detailed update on the paper’s website.

There’s more. I also love the ability of Herald readers to add comments below a column: my column last week, for example, was “not funny” but still good, according to Bill. Thanks Bill! I also enjoy the excitement of the website, with its videos and links. And, most of all, the still-active desire to tell both sides of a story – now such a rarity in the siloed world of social media and in some, competing, mainstream media. It’s why the Herald now has a new advertising campaign – “Here’s to reason” – noting its passion for telling both sides of each story.

I agree, although with a few exceptions. Who needs both sides when it is all about Wedgwood china and a Rolls-Royce? Give me, any day, a sturdy Vegemite jar and a battered old Holden ute.

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