A Yorkshire Evening Post columnist has penned a farewell to the paper’s “ugly, quirky and distinctive” office as journalists get set to move to a new base.
The newspaper’s office on Wellington Street, Leeds, shared with daily stablemate the Yorkshire Post, will close its doors for the last time today.
From next week, the two Johnston Press titles will be produced from a new, modern office at No 1 Leeds, Whitehall Road, which unlike the current newsroom, will have windows.
But in spite of its reputation as a monument to architectural brutalism, YEP columnist Jayne Dawson admitted she will miss the place where she has worked for the past 20 years.
The soon-to-be-abandoned YP/YEP building at Wellington Street
She wrote: “There are those who have always hated the Yorkshire Evening Post’s home on Wellington Street, but I am not one of them.
“It’s ugly, I’ll give you that. But ugly things are lovable too. My cat wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but I feed him regularly.
“It is a building that was conceived in the 1960s and a supreme example of a confident time, when optimism and modernism were sweeping away the old to create a better world for ordinary people.
“Goodness only knows what Prince Charles thought when he officially opened the place back then, he not really being a fan of the new. Legend has it that it did once win an award though – but from a concrete manufacturer.
“But that was all 42 years ago and now the building has had its day. It no longer fits the modern world of newspapers, and so here I sit surrounded by the detritus of our impending move: a green cowboy hat, a pink feather boa and a giant pair of gold hotpants on the desk beside me.
“This new place, No 1 Leeds, on Whitehall Road, has much to recommend it. Most of all it has windows, a facility that we in the YEP newsroom have long been deprived of.
“It’s a bit of an architectural joke when you think about it, a newsroom, a window on the world…without windows. We managed somehow. And it was always interesting to gaze up at the tiny skylights and guess what the weather was doing.
“So the For Sale sign is up and we are finally saying goodbye to our concrete home. Some fabulous dramas have been enacted here – you know, all the stuff we couldn’t put in the paper. But now it’s time to switch off the light.”
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On one occasion during my years as FoC, we put in a claim for a six per cent pay rise and eight windows. We got the six per cent but not the windows.
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Wow that column sounds amazing!
Jayne Dawson is a legend.
And so is Tony Harney
They are the heart and soul of the YEP. A great pair
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Always found the Welly St newsroom a great place to visit over the years. It had a real charm about it. The lack of windows gave it a sort of bunker feel. But the Mansfield Chad offices on Newgate Lane – they used to have bars on the windows. It was like being in prison!
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I can see what Jayne means, it is a bit of an iconic landmark on the edge of the city, even though it is a fairly brutal looking building.
I can often remember as a child passing on the nearby motorway and looking over at the big digital clock.
No doubt it will now be turned into trendy flats and wine bars!
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I worked in the editorial hall for 30 years. I looked forward to November and January when a chink of sunlight might come through a window high up above the door to the corridor down to the editor’s office. For the rest of the year you had to rely on others to tell you the weather outside.
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