sparkle

Starting work aged 16 in the offices of the Derby Evening Telegraph, I was one of eight young hopefuls looking for a career in journalism. There was no such thing as work experience, or job seekers' allowances. We were told that if after six months we showed signs of understaning the way newspapers worked then four of us would be taken on as juniors, and four would be told to find something else to do with their lives. Four were discharged, before the six months were up, for incredible stupidity; one was to take down racing results from a phone service, but went to sleep. He was found with his head on the desk by frantc printers wondering where the result of the 300pm at Kempton Park had got to. The rest of us clung on in spite of furious sub-editors, and a news editor who wore his ulcer like a badge of office. My first reporting job was a meeting of Derby Groundsmen's Association, and I produced  100 words on the problem groundsmen were  having with moles under cricket pitches. The sports editor threw my 'copy' back at me, and said: 'mek it sparkle, lad!'  I gradually discovered ways in which even the most tedious subject could be made interesting. In 550 The academic Muretus fell on hard times financially and physically. He was taken to hospital, where surgeons said, thinking he was unable to understand:. 'There's nothing we can do with this nobody. Let's experimentt with his bones'. Muretus looked at them and said in perfect Latin: 'Don't call any person for whom Christ died a "nobody".' In faith even the dullest can sparkle