...in which Mike Day fills us in on how Navvies was put together in the days before John Hawkins, and teaches us some new words like ‘Roneo’, ‘foolscap’ and ‘Letraset’...
WRG Print The early years
Cadisch worked for the family firm who sold wire and other mesh. Their factory unit was Seeing John Hawkins’ report of his doings equipped with long benches upon which they for the last 40 years or so sends one off unrolled, cut and rerolled the mesh and down memory lane. This is not to confirm dispatched to their customers, and was the probable opinion that anyone of my age perfect for up to 30 idiots to collate, fold, is a boring old fart, but prompts me to fill in stitch and stuff what was always called Navvies, the WRGPrint history of the time before John even when it said Navvies Notebook on the was involved. cover. The factory was also a very short stagWell, not quite that, because it started ger from 4 Wentworth Court which was to before WRGPrint was thought of. When become well known as “where you send for TimDodwell and Graham Palmer and a few Navvies Notebook”, to quote the song we wrote one drunken evening at the Fleur de other malcontents started our ball rolling by Lys at Lowsonford – shortly before we were dreaming up an umbrella organisation that would help support all the local working parties thrown out. Graham was not happy with this (the up an down the country, the object to do the printing, not the Fleur de Lys) – printshops publicity about it was Navvies Notebook, a Roneoed, folded foolscap publication (ask were not cheap, and true to the idea that we your grandpa about both Roneo and foolsdo whatever we can to control costs he cap) At the time the ‘A’ series of paper sizes bought a printing machine. It was offset was just coming in, and the swap to A4 litho, about as cheap as one could started immediately because Graham saw that Roneo was just not cutting (this is a pun – see note about grandpas above) it, and he could get A4 copied at a printshop (something else brand new then – fortunately Graham was a Londoner and print shops sprang up everywhere in the metropolis where offices needed printing done in an age before desktop computers, desktop printing... but I digress...) Graham would drop the copy into the printshop at lunchtime, and pick it up when he finished work, stuff it into his briefcase and totter off to the Northern Line to Finchley. He would probably do this about three times in order to drag all the printing home, then a group of us met at our treasurer Phil Greenwood’s house to fold, staple and stuff it. I clearly remember leaving Phil’s one night at about 1 am with job still not completed! The print run in those days was about 750 or 1000, but grew rapidly. When I was printing it I produced just under 3000 copies. How it began: Navvies Notebook issue No 1 Our fellow London navvy John
WRG Print: how it began
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