User:Voxterque

The Observer readers room 1959 to 1981 from my father's memories by Michael James Gould.

In the heavily unionised days before modern print technology copy was typeset by compositors and then proof read in the reading room, where my father worked from 1959 till his retirement. The readers regarded themselves as gentlemen correctors of the press and had numerous bibles, one of which was Fowlers Modern English Usage. My father duly brought home a copy of MEU, but never explained that is was meant to be funny. Indeed it is the driest humour imaginable, and was way over my head. As gentlemen correctors of the press they declared war on Katharine Whitehorn who became its first female columnist in 1963, disputing the syntax and sense of her articles, which they kept referring back to the sub-editor. Katharine Whitehorn joined the the Observer as a fashion editor in 1960, wrote Cooking in a Bedsitter published in 1961, and famously published an article on sluts in 1963. She might have been the model for the character Daphne Whitethigh, played by Betty Marsden in episodes of round the Horne, 1965 to 1968, who was a cookery, fashion and feminist writer. The print unions looked after their members, opposing new technology, but eventually bled the industry, and were trounced by an unholy alliance of Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher.Voxterque (talk) 14:41, 12 January 2021 (UTC) Voxterque (talk) 14:45, 12 January 2021 (UTC)