I was hopeless, but perhaps hapless is even more accurate

A 17-year-old working class boy, born in a prefab, pitched himself into the middle class world of a quaint old local newspaper.

First day was Monday, February 8, 1965, a few months before the unofficial summer of love that totally passed me by.

I was supposed to be a footballer but turned down a contract at Millwall for a reason I’ll take to the grave with me. How I was taken on by the Kentish Independent – the dear old “K.I.” – in Wellington Street also had a football link to it.

The coach of the Sunday team I played for – London Cup winners, so pretty good – was also the manager of a sports shop in Wellington Street, called Club Sports, and half way between the shop and the K.I. was Carl’s Café.

We went to the café for cottage pie, chips and beans, and so did the sports reporter on the K.I. We talked mostly about local football but the reporter let slip that they needed a junior reporter. I applied for it and, amazingly, got it.

The reason was Charlie King. Gawd knows what he saw in me. Having a football/sporting background possibly helped, and I came out with the usual stuff about liking to meet people. I only had four O-levels – I’d been sent, hilariously, to a ‘technical school’ – but two of them were English and English Lit (somehow).

So, this is about Charlie King, the ever so kindly, pipe-smoking, Times Crossword-doing editor of the Kentish Independent, the man who made most of my life possible.

Charlie oversaw my six-month trial. If it had been under the chief sub – a not-so-nice John Robinson called Jack – I’d’ve been out on my arse by August, if not sooner.

I’d never typed and didn’t know that stories were called ‘copy’. Who copies what? Do I copy someone or does someone copy me?

News angle? What, I still half wonder, is the news angle of a man who retired after working for 25 years in the Woolwich Arsenal? Charlie sent me up the steepest hill in Plumstead – Plum Lane – three times to find out more about Mr Tappenden’s retirement plans. Mr Tappenden, a name I would never forget.

There was a serious chance that Mr Tappenden might die before the story appeared. When it did it included the most shameful word in local journalism, ‘recently’. Hobby: trains.

Slowly, oh so bloody slowly, I improved. What helped was Charlie getting his favourite reporter, the equally kindly Christine Jones – who later emigrated to Canada, I think – to watch her doing her stuff in Woolwich Court.

That brought things to life for me. Especially when I read Christine’s very clear and very often amusing ‘copy’. I did a bit myself and it wasn’t bad.

But it was ages before I wrote the piece the set me on the road to proper journalism, the breakthrough, an interview with famous singer Sandie Shaw, which never happened.

I wrote about it not happening and dear Charlie loved it.