Self-confessed dinosaur calls it a day

Mike Lockley

Award-winning Sunday Mercury columnist Mike Lockley (pictured), who for the last eleven years has also worked for sister title the Birmingham Mail, has announced his retirement after notching up almost half a century in journalism. Here’s the parting shot from a “legend of journalism” who also edited Staffordshire’s Chase Post for 25 years.

“I realised it was time to retire during one pre-lockdown office day when a terrible truth dawned. I was wearing a cardigan older than 50 per cent of the workforce.

It could only be a matter of time before they began approaching, wreathed in benign smiles, and speaking slowly and loudly.

I had a harrowing premonition of those reporters one day mouthing within earshot: “I think Mike needs a toilet break.”

So that’s it, then.

At the age of 64 and with 47 continuous years in the industry, that’s me done.

Probably for the best. An army of IT staff still bear the scars of trying to instil some semblance of new technology skill into this baffled hack.

“Come on, come on,” seethed one. “‘Mike 1958’ isn’t a secure password. Give me one with seven characters.”

“Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy…,” I recited.

He threw his earphones on the table and stormed off.

I leave journalism with the same love for the profession, a trunk crammed with great memories and an archive of anecdotes.

It has been a blast. From start to finish. There are, of course, regrets – particularly the perm I sported in the late 1970s, but I wouldn’t change any part of the journey.

There have been mistakes.

I still shudder at memories of a black day in the 1980s while working as a sub on a regional daily.

Back then – a time before computers, a time of points and picas, headlines were written by hand and nervously presented to all-powerful print workers to turn into type, I was tasked with producing a front page on the battle to save British Leyland.

Fighting against deadline and feeling the effects of a boozy lunch, I scrawled the banner headline: “Big Drive To Save Jobs”.

The all-powerful print workers, who had previously complained about my illegible handwriting, grabbed the note and rushed to the waiting presses.

Almost the entire population of Birmingham woke up next morning to a front page proclaiming: “Big Dave To Save Jobs”.

I appeased my furious editor – who had, crimson with rage, demanded, “who the **** is Big Dave?” – by claiming “Big Dave” was a union leader and his quote was cut from the finished story.

How, I was once asked, has someone so lacking in social media skills survived for so long?

Younger reporters bristle with new technology knowledge and drive, but they lack my deep self-preservation skills. I learnt long ago that when woefully out of one’s depth, walk fast and look concerned.

I’ve been lucky. Particularly lucky to forge so many friendships.

Lucky to have helped so many others make their mark.

Lucky to have returned to the same no-nonsense town where it all started – this time as editor, a position I held for 25 magical years.

There have also been glorious years at Boxing News, where I covered world title fights in Vegas and Atlantic City; near surreal shifts on Sunday Sport where I knocked Bobby Moore’s post-match observations into pristine prose; the past 11 years at the Birmingham Mail and Sunday Mercury have been crammed with some of the best stories I’ve ever worked on.

I will not proclaim loudly: “The old times were the best.”

They were different, distant times. Newsrooms echoed to the clatter of typewriters, cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air.

You knocked on doors to get stories. If a reporter wanted background, he rummaged through cuttings or visited the local library.

Frankly, the industry attracted a lot more unhinged individuals back then, their eccentricities heightened by three-pint lunches.

And I don’t miss the hair-dryer treatment doled out by some editors.

I began my career covering a heatwave in a Staffordshire mining community so tough it was twinned with a Balkan town called Domestos.

I ended it covering the recent Sahara temperatures.

In 1975, we illustrated the unprecedented conditions with a picture of a bikini clad, leggy lovely lounging in the local park under the headline: “Phew, what a scorcher!”

In 2022, we carry images of burning forests and cracked, barren river beds.

In 1975, Thursday was a day to meet contacts. I’d cycle to businesses, to boozers to local busy-bodies. They were invariably lost, alcohol impregnated days.

A billboard, spotted during a holiday abroad, began my love affair with journalism. It proclaimed: “Woman in owl attack dies of diarrhoea”. Boy, I wanted to do that story.

It’s been a career devoid of owl attacks, but I’ve tracked panthers on Cannock Chase, exposed skullduggery in the world of competitive pumpkin growing, campaigned to get pink custard back on school menus, even revealed the Turin Shroud is a Burton-upon-Trent tea towel.

I tried Fleet Street once. One leading tabloid asked me to write 120 words on the most personal part of a pop star’s anatomy. I was given a public dressing down for using a “bloody silly” word – “phallus”.

They changed it to something more sensible – “todger”.

Soon after we decided to go our separate ways: a “you call it phallus, I call it todger, let’s call the whole thing off” moment.

Yes, I am a dinosaur. Yes, I am – or was – a hack, often a beer sodden one.

I’m proud of the label and proud of my career.

Last night my wife – a source of support throughout my near half-century in the business – said: “If you think you’re going to spend retirement lying on the sofa and drinking all day, think again.”

I’ve heeded her words. I’ve bought a hip flask.”