I worked as a senior reporter at the Surrey Comet for 12 months from April 1970 after being employed by the Editor, Tony Thomas, during an interview at 20 Church Street. This followed a telephone interview during which he immediately picked my Australian accent.

The important part of the arrangement was a handshake. He requested me to stay at the Comet for at least 12 months, an agreement which i was happy to honour.

I remember many names on the editorial staff: Gill Arthurell, Mike Morris, George Best lookalike Alan Owens, Ian (IFT) Thomas, Pam Leeds, our global man John Hemmingway, Canadian Fiona Thompson, photographers John McDonnell and Jeff Edwards, subs John Vivian, Angus Dickie and Dick Parsons. Alan Gill migrated to Australia as, I believe, did Tony Townsend. The news editor was Colin Lawrence.

So many will remember walking through the shop and up the stairs to the reporters' room with that magnificent view of the memorial gardens.

I believe I left at least one legacy of my time at the Comet. At the Courier-Mail in Brisbane, my first journalistic home, reporters gave themselves desk space by tipping their typewriters forward. At the Comet I did the same. I heard some years later that the practice had continued well after I left.

The paper had two editions, Wednesday and Saturday. We were proud of the quality of the publication. I was told by the wife of a Fleet Street executive that her husband was a Comet admirer, and liked to pick up a copy of the paper and read it on the train up to London.

One of our jobs was to cover the Kingston Magistrates Court in the Guildhall. The press bench was immediately in front of the lawyers' seating, meaning that we reporters and the legal fraternity were literally eye to eye. Every so often a visiting lawyer would ask surreptitiously: "What are the magistrates like here?" I couldn't resist pulling their legs. I'd ask what their client was charged with. If it was drink driving, I'd tell them that the Kingston bench was fierce on drink drivers. Ditto for other charges.

Friendship and hospitality seemed to be the motto at the Comet. There were many examples, starting on my first day. Alan Owens came over at lunchtime to invite me to join him and some others at "La Belle Spoon," his phrase for a cafe in Church Street known as the Greasy Spoon which served all day breakfasts of sausage, eggs, chips and beans. Lovely. Then, much later, Tony Thomas was kind enough late one afternoon to pick me up when my car broke down after a job at Hampton, and drop me back at Kingston. How many editors would do that?

My patch was Walton, Weybridge, Hersham, Byfleet and Addlestone. A gentleman called Jack Hawkins was known to open local fetes, and the Beatles were in residence at St George's Hill. The Walton police would say that they weren't supposed to show reporters the incident book, but then they'd put it on the counter at the police station, and walk away for a couple of minutes.

It was everything from general reporting to police, fire and ambulance, the council, and even reviewing local theatre productions, including the Yvonne Arnaud theatre at Guildford.

With Weybridge on my patch, British Aircraft Corporation, the largest employer in the circulation area, was a source of many stories. BAC was building components for the Concorde and this must have been an omen as later in the 1970s, as aviation writer for the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial, I covered the Concorde proving flights to Australia.The superjet would have halved the flight time between Britain and Australia but sadly was never brought into commercial service on that route.

At the Comet I was asked to write a story about the introduction of decimal currency to Britain, having witnessed introduction of decimal currency to Australia in 1966. I based the story around the stallholders at Kingson market, a wondrous place within easy walking distance of the office. It didn't take long to get to know the stallholders, and it really was a nice gesture when a fishmonger, for instance, would throw in an extra piece of fish or knock a few pence off the bill.

John Vivian tempered his work as chief sub with a sparkling sense of humour overlaid with a Welsh accent and spiced with mischief. Alan Owens had made hs way to the Coca-Cola dispensing machine down the corridor. Whether Alan had difficulty with the machine was not clear, but there was a loud crash. John Vivian yelled: "Bloody 'ell, the Coke machine's swallowed Mickey Mouse!"

I was sad to learn that the building in which we produced the Comet has been demolished. Townscapes and streetscapes are constantly changing and only the beholder can judge whether it's been for the better. Dame Edna Everage, for example, assessed Melbourne's new Federaton Square with the words: "It's amazing what they can do with banged out kerosene tins and old bits of lino.'

I should declare a long-standing connection with Surrey, apart from pleasant days at the Comet. My mother was born in Reigate, migrating to Australia wth her parents in 1913. The last of the relatives with a Reigate connection, my mother's cousin Muriel, died in 2004 aged almost 101. But that's another story.

Peter returned to Australia in late 1971, joining the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial. In 1985 he left the Sun for a job with the Australian Defence Force Public Affairs.  He is still with them.