W.H.Smith have been newspaper and magazine wholesalers for many years. Newspapers send their papers to Smith's, Smith's bundle them up with other papers and magazines and deliver them to all the newsagents in their area.
This week, they changed the name of their wholesale business to Connect because they believe newspapers and magazines will make up less than half of their business in the future.
When I left school as a callow 17-year-old in 1962 I started work at W.H.Smith's main office in Newcastle as a management trainee. My job was to copy the number of weekly magazines each shop received from this week's list on to next week's list: 27 Woman's Own, 30 Beano, 25 Hotspur, 15 Angling Times and so on. This was way before computers and photo-copiers.
If I had stayed there, I could have progressed to an alterations clerk, who took changes phoned through from the shops: Stop 3 Beano, add 2 Dandy. Next step was an accounts clerk, who added up the shops' bills, taking the changes into account. After that, who knows? Manager of the W.H.Smith shop in Whitley Bay station maybe.
But I didn't stay. After six months of copying, I was offered a place as a reporter and sub-editor on The Journal sports desk. £8 a week for covering football, speedway and snooker contests, instead of £4 a week for copying lists.
Nonetheless, Smith's started me off and for that I am grateful.
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