The Teesdale Mercury’s resident local historian David Croom recalls the days when print was king and the Mercury print shop supplied services to businesses and organisations nationwide.
THIS year the Teesdale Mercury newspaper celebrated its 170th year in production.
The actual anniversary in early June passed by with little fanfare, just a quiet acknowledgement of another milestone in a long history.
But 2024 saw another significant development in the lifetime of the Mercury, one that few people would be aware of without an inside knowledge.
In July 2024, the Teesdale Mercury print works was demolished.
Accessed down a side alley between the Mercury shop and Heron’s foodstore the print works occupied the space behind the shop and adjoining the Castle Wall.
In constant use from 1880 when the Mercury moved from its original premises where the old Nat West Bank building stands to 2014, the print works produced in excess of 7,000 editions of the weekly newspaper and countless other commercial printing jobs and publications.
This latest development has a particular poignancy for me as it was in these buildings that I started my career in print almost 45 years ago.
Starting as a 16-year-old printer’s devil (the name traditionally given to a printer’s apprentice) in 1979 I can still remember walking in on my first day and even at that tender age feeling the weight of history that these walls represented.
Generations of printers and compositors toiled late into the night to set the type by hand under flickering gas lamps.
By the time I started, hand typesetting was limited to larger headlines in the newspaper and posters and the bulk of the typesetting was done by linotype machines of which the Mercury print room had three.
These machines produced lines of type out of molten lead. The clattering of the keyboards and the noise from the casting mechanisms was deafening when all three machines were in operation.
This coupled with the thundering roar of the flatbed printing press hammering backwards and forwards on press days could make it feel like the building was vibrating.
The smell was also unique, being a combination of oil, grease, ink and lead fumes. Occasional visitors to the print room often remarked on the distinct aroma which they found strangely comforting, if not particularly healthy!
One of my more vivid memories was the day each year in early autumn when the thermostat on the industrial gas heaters kicked in indicating that the temperature in the print works had dropped below a pre-set level. Walking through the doors on that morning being enveloped by the heat and the smell of the dust being burned off the gas burners meant that summer was over, autumn had arrived and winter was just round the corner.
Ironically it was these same gas heaters that eventually led to the demise of the print works.
In the autumn of 2013 a gas engineer condemned them as being dangerous and put a prohibition notice on them thus sealing the fate of the historic print works.
In 2014 the printing operation moved to a modern industrial unit but one year later the print works closed for good when the printing of the newspaper was outsourced to enable the paper to be printed in full colour.
The old print works behind the shop was left to fall into dereliction, the leaks in the roof turned into large holes through which the sky was visible and nettles grew knee high where the printing staff once toiled.
Now, having just recounted my experiences in the print room through rose tinted spectacles and offering a romanticised version of the past that only the passing of time can justify, would I give up my warm, dry office for a leaky print room? No!
Would I swop my modern Apple Macintosh computer for a noisy linotype machine that threatened to shower me with molten lead if I cast a slack line? No!
So, you might ask what prompted this indulgent stroll down memory lane?
Well recently a reader brought a booklet into the Mercury offices called “Tales of Teesdale, Told Anew,” that was printed and published in the Mercury print room in 1973. The book is thought to be an updated version of a much earlier book published by the Mercury as early as 1885 called “Tales and Traditions of Teesdale” as many of the stories date back to the 18th and 19th century. Stories of old which would have no doubt been recounted around the fireside of Teesdale homes over many generations.
Stories such as the Wild Man of Streatlam, Murder in Bridgegate, The Hand of Glory, the Murder of Hannah Latham and the Whorlton Scandal.
This reminded me that although best known as a publisher of the newspaper the Mercury also undertook the printing of all manner of commercial printing jobs.
Indeed the Atkinson family who started the newspaper in 1854 following the abolition of a prohibitive tax on newspapers were already operating a commercial printing company prior to launching the weekly newspaper.
When I started my career in print at least half the working week was dedicated to commercial printing.
If you could name a printed product chances are the Mercury was printing it.
Letterheads, posters business cards, raffle tickets, menus, weekly auction mart listings, Orders of Service for weddings and funerals, Parish Magazines, Women’s Institute programmes, Masonic Lodge agendas, invoice books, Eggleston and Bowes Show programmes and schedules to name but a few.
Surprisingly not all printing jobs were for local businesses and organisations, four times a year we would get around a dozen Methodist Preaching Plans to produce for diocese all over the country, a religious based newspaper based in a London borough called The Star was printed regularly and other religious printed paraphernalia.
The Barnard Castle Meet Programme was another annual job for some years and early autumn brought the dreaded sheep show programmes which listed all the sheep for sale with the name of each sheep, its sire and dam and flock book numbers.
As early as 1882 the newspaper was carrying adverts for its own publications such as the “Teesdale Mercury Penny Guide Book,” no doubt cashing in on the influx of visitors to the area that the new railway had brought.
Never known to miss a commercial opportunity the advert was situated below a weekly list of visitors to the area which was published in the newspaper along with the addresses of the hosts.
One year later the above mentioned advert was joined by another published from the Mercury’s offices called “Handbook to Barnard Castle and the Neighbourhood,” which offered “more copious details with engravings and maps,” priced at 1s.
By 1900 two more books had been published, “Atkinson’s Book of Views” priced at 1s. and “Tales and Traditions of Teesdale (Part III)” at 3d.
In 1926 Teesdale Mercury publications were listed in the paper as “Rhymes of Teesdale,” “Deepdale and other Poems,” “Wonders and Other Poems,” and “Teesdale in Song and Story.”
In 1961 the Mercury printed an colourful guide entitled “Lovely Teesdale” that had been commissioned by Barnard Castle Urban and Rural Councils and Startforth Rural Council.
By 1980 the list of Mercury publications was extensive including several walking guides, “Fireside Tales from the Dales,” “Diary of a Country Schoolmaster” and not forgetting “Around the Hollow Hills” and “Rhymes of a Rustic Bard” about legendary Teesdale poet Richard Watson.
The last major publication undertaken was “The Barney Liar,” printed in the early 2000s which was an anthology of satirical stories previously printed in the newspaper by a popular columnist of the same name.
