I joined the Surrey Comet in 1958 as the drama, film and book critic having trained on the old Surrey Times at Guildford and then worked at the Bath Chronicle and briefly in the United States and for the Central Office of Information.

At that time the Comet was a broadsheet, owned by the Knapp Drewett family with offices and print works in the centre of Kingston-upon-Thames.

The editor was Mr d'Avigdor with Gilbert Jenkins as his assistant and soon to be editor.

The reporters were housed in small rooms in a long corridor. I shared a room with Bill Findlay, chief reporter, Kit Kenworthy and John Palmer.

It was very much a family firm and when I first joined, the annual outing or wayzgoose was attended by everyone as was the Christmas party.

Mr d'Avigdor had one inflexible rule for the style book - ‘employee' had to be spelled ‘employe' which gave rise to a number of letters to the editor but was never altered! He edited the gossip column known as ‘Trail of the Comet' and all reporters were meant to contribute two ‘trials' a week - we all tried to look busy when we heard him coming down the corridor late on Thursday afternoon demanding his ‘trials of the week'. My job meant working most evenings as we attended amateur drama productions anywhere in the circulation area as well as the professional performances at Wimbledon, Richmond and Leatherhead. On a Monday I happily watched three films and then a theatre performance before handing in my copy for the mid-week paper.

If invited to amateur performances we expected to give a critical review - when my initials at the end of the report changed from ‘MC' when I married to ‘MW' we had a number of letters saying ‘thank goodness you have got rid of that horrid person MC"!

After a number of years as drama critic, I asked to change back to general reporting and covered the Surbiton district until I left in February 1969.

I shall always remember the murder of Kingston Grammar school pupil Roy Tuthill and the feeling of shock, anger and hopelessness everyone felt.

Another memory is of a fatal car accident to a Chessington bridegroom and his best man following a stag night outing. I can remember walking up and down the street knowing I had to speak to the family and dreading the feeling of intrusion. When I finally plucked up courage to approach, the family welcomed me as a stranger to whom they could talk and thanked me later for writing a piece they could keep.

Other personalities I remember from my time at the Comet are Mike Haines, Mike Day, Peter Joel, Roger Bray, Brian West (to become editor), Ann Yeats, Jill Millikin, John Vivyan, Don Thompson (from the management and print side), Jeff Edson and Alan Watkin (advertising).

Marjorie White (nee Charman)
Leatherhead