I worked for Knapp, Drewett & Sons for 27-and-a-half years starting in 1953 as a compositor, then in the General Composing Room, onto the newsroom where we set adverts and made up the pages for the Surrey Comet, both for the midweek edition and then onto the Saturday edition.

From there I went on to learn the Linotype machine at the Linotype School, in London, before joining the Linotype department in 1964. This was necessary because of an injury to my back through heavy lifting in the newsroom.

As the years went by I became in charge of the Lino Room before finally being made redundant through age, as the paper went from hot metal to computer setting. It was then that the firm moved from Church Street to Lower Kings Road (renamed Sterne Road).

You may be interested to know that some of us from the Linotype Department meet over the Christmas period for a drink and talk about old times (occasionally).

I also have the name of my twin brother, Ken, who worked for a while at KDS after transferring from the Middlesex Chronicle. At that time we also set and printed the Richmond Herald, the Middlesex Chronicle and other small newspapers for firms (I forget the names of these).

We produced the midweek Comet (broadsheet) up to 52 pages, the Middlesex Chronicle from anything up to 32 (broadsheet) and the Richmond Herald from 24 page upwards, depending on advertising.

L W Stokes
Grafton Road
Worcester Park