Robin Baiden joined the Comet as a reporter in 1949.

In late 1949, I was looking for a job in journalism because English language and grammar were my best school exam results.

Because I lived there, the Esher News was my first port of call. But it was fully staffed so the editor referred me to the Surrey Comet.

I was interviewed there by Gilbert Jenkins (GJ), the news editor, and Mr D’Avigdor, the editor and a very aloof figure.

I was taken on for a week’s trial just before Christmas 1949 and put to work writing a history of the Kingston Cattle Market plus a few trivial news pieces.

All went well and I was taken on to the staff in the spring of 1950, having completed my last term at school.

It was understood that I had to be released for two years National Service starting the following March. (GJ had served as a Major in the Royal Artillery during the recent war and was still very interested in military affairs.)

During that first year I covered a district for the Saturday edition and sports for the Wednesday paper.

The districts included, from time to time, Walton and Weybridge; Sunbury and Hampton; Esher and Cobham.

This mainly involved visiting the local priest, undertaker, police station and some regular “coffee shop contacts” who knew the gossip.

Transport was by bus or bike, depending upon the weather.

Motorbikes came some time later.

Sports coverage for the midweek edition was allocated by the sports editor, Reg Williams, best known for his 40-a-day full strength Capstan cigarette consumption.

We sent reporters regularly to Kingstonian and Wimbledon (both in the Isthmian League) and Walton & Hersham (Athenian League).

This was popular because the three London evening papers always wanted a brief half-time and full-time report on these games for which they paid well.

Some Sunday papers also asked for reports, so these games were a useful source of extra income.

They were also of a high standard and well attended.

In those days the FA Amateur Cup Final was played at Wembley and attracted as large a crowd as the professional final.

In the summer we covered some benefit games and regattas (the bane of a reporter’s life because all the individual results had to be included.
Eventually, I managed to persuade the organiser to collate all the small print stuff.

Likewise, with flower show category winners. Names sell papers, as they were always saying in newsrooms of those days, but at the cost of brain damaging tedium.

During the average week there were a number of breaking stories and these got allocated by GJ to whoever was available. He subbed all copy from all reporters and the last thing you wanted to see on your desk having filed a story was a note which read “See me – GJ”.

You had committed some solecism which after the initial blast was generally sorted out amicably.

I remember most of the reporters who were around at that time.

Dapper Ron Lawrence went on to the News of the World; rugged Pat Mennem became motoring correspondent of the Daily Mirror, having married Anne Ince who was the woman’s page editor; singular Jim Biddulph ended up in Hong Kong with the South China Morning Post; smooth Lewis Roberts went to a radio station in Canada and later became head of the UK Tourist Bureau there; cheerful Charlie Nicholas went to The Scotsman; trendy John Kettle was film and drama critic but went I know not where, as is the case with Reg Williams.

The linchpin of this whole set-up was GJ, who lived in Tudor Drive, Kingston.

He was a mentor to me and the classic case of someone whose bark was much worse than his bite. When things were quiet he would lean back in his battered chair, light his pipe and talk about whatever took his fancy.

He was a lovely man. Long after I left the Comet I would call in to see him.

I did return to the Comet after my National Service stint and stayed for another year before moving on to trade papers and then into the public relations business, where I worked in the UK, Singapore and Indonesia before retiring to Surbiton in 1999.

Ks biggest ever home crowd and biggest ever defeat, 12-3 to Bishop Auckland, in February 1955. Reports on these matches were a handy cash boost to young reporters.