First and last...

A day to look back, and to dream forward.
After nearly 24 years working for Scarborough's newspaper, the Evening News, now just the News, I hang up my camera for a new and different life. It's part my own choice, and part the changes happening in the newspaper business.
Like all jobs, I'll miss the good days, the buzz of news and the fun of meeting the well known, but I won't miss the days when I've thought, 'what am I doing here?!' And I won't miss the snow photos!
But leaving newspapers has made me realise what a special job it is, the mix of drudge, joy, celebrity, news, and art (if you want to be arty...). I'll watch TV news and think, a little wistfully, 'I used to be one of them...'.

This is one of my first pics I shot for the paper when I joined back in December 1989, the second to be used P1 (my very first was a very bad car crash, not an ideal blip!). I know this because it has my byline on the page, but to be honest, I can't recall taking it.
Not surprised, as I've shot probably a million frames, for thousands of photos, over decades of analogue to digital snapping.

Now I'm looking forward to the rest, as daily paper life is non-stop, and even when the News turned weekly last year, the workload was still similar, just the deadlines gone.
So it's a rest, a bit of freelancing, or who knows what next..? A family life, a new chapter opens, a new life...
And a sleep in tomorrow morning!

BTW, here's me at work over the years, compiled by fellow snapper, and great friends Tony and Jeannie of Turnstone Media. I never knew I had been 'papped' so much! Thank you!