The Argus in Brighton is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. Here the paper looks back to a time when reporters covered their patch by bicycle and flew stories to the office...

The life of a 19th Century journalist was beset with challenges incomprehensible to staff of The Argus today.

These were, after all, the years that saw the invention of the light bulb and specifically-made toilet paper.

There were no cars, few telephones, no radio, no fountain pens – even tea bags were unheard of until 1904.

Newsgathering in the very early days presented particular problems for the district reporters.

Sidney Walter Evans joined the company in March 1897, spending almost 25 years in the Midhurst and Horsham area.

When he first took over his patch of some 60 parishes he had to cycle an average of 30 miles a day.

Footpads – highwaymen without horses – were not unknown and he invariably carried with him a smooth-edged knuckleduster and a truncheon.

In those days, when telephones were few and far between, urgent news was sent back to Brighton by carrier pigeon – a much faster method than using the telegraph service.

Evans often carried a basket of six pigeons with him when he went on an assignment.

There was a pigeon loft and trap on the roof of head office at Brighton.

One of the boys employed to look after the birds was William Christmas, who started work in 1887.

It was his job to secure the pigeons as they arrived, remove the reporters' copy from the little capsules attached to them and take it down to editorial.

Among the stories Sidney Evans dispatched via his carrier pigeons were his sighting of Queen Victoria's coffin on its way from Osborne House to London for the state funeral and the opening by King Edward VII of the hospital at Midhurst.

Evans certainly had a close acquaintance with the community he worked in. Often, after a puncture on the way home late at night, he was glad to seek a bed in one of the local rural workhouses.

On one occasion, when an inmate died and the coffin plate failed to arrive, he helped out the master by sitting astride the coffin and painting the corpse's name and age on the lid.

Cecil Kerman, later a sports editor of The Argus, started with the company in 1908 as a 14-year-old messenger boy. He used to take a basketful of pigeons to important football matches to send back the results and scorers, and on one occasion had to carry 14 pigeons to the scene of a road crash to fly the story to the office.

In later years he stoutly maintained that the pigeons were much quicker than the modern phone service.

The Hastings office also had its own pigeon loft, in a tower at the corner of the building.

Another pigeon boy, Leslie Long, who started work with the company in 1912, was put in charge of advertising at the age of 21 and held the post of advertisement manager until his retirement in 1963.

Punctuality in those days brought its own reward. Mrs E House, who worked in the business room at 130 North Street from 1904 to 1908, later recalled that if employees were punctual all the year round, two extra days were added to their holiday week.

But getting to work on time in those days was easier said than done.

The bicycle, a penny-farthing before 1885, was used by most Argus reporters to carry out their daily duties.

The first photo did not appear in The Argus until February 1926. It was of a fire at the Court Cinema Theatre in New Road, Brighton.

The picture was taken by Reg Guppy who had joined the firm as an artist in the lithographic department on leaving school in 1922.

Mr Guppy later recalled borrowing a camera from Steads in Duke Street for the job. It was pitch dark inside the badly damaged building so he had to use flash.

He set up the camera, put out about a quarter of a pound of magnesium powder, lit the "fuse" and waited at a safe distance. Nothing happened so after a while he went to see what had gone wrong. Suddenly there was a whoosh, the flash went off and he lost his eyebrows.

But he had his picture and it appeared in that day's paper.

Photographs or not, there was no shortage of news for the early Argus reporters to work with.

Their first big story came less than three months after the paper was launched when, on June 19, 1880, Brighton experienced the worst fire in its history, starting at the premises of an upholsterer in Queen's Road.

That modern media mainstay, celebrity, made an early appearance with the visit to Hove of the Shah of Persia and a visit by Oscar Wilde when his horse bolted on the seafront and his carriage crashed into the railings of Regency Square.

Long careers at The Argus were not unusual. Few Sussex firms boasted so many loyal employees.

William Christmas, the boy who started out looking after the pigeons, later moved to advertising and worked for 63 years full-time then a further ten years part-time in the returns department. He never retired. He worked until a fortnight before his death in 1961.

Linotype operator Danny Watts created a record never likely to be broken. He worked full-time from August 1903 until his retirement in October 1975 at the age of 87 – a period of 72 years.

In the year of his retirement he was awarded the BEM in the New Year’s Honours List for his unique record of service to one employer.

Today The Argus's longest serving employee is Ken Potter, now press hall manager. Ken joined the paper in 1959, aged 17.

He worked in the stereo department making the big lead plates that went on the press, each one weighing 56lbs.

Forty-five years on, Ken, 62, is the closest contender for Danny Watts' record.

He said: "I'm on a three-day week now but I can't see myself retiring. I'd get bored. I used to work with Danny and I remember him well. Maybe one day I'll break his record!"

Journalism in the 21st Century is a different world to that inhabited by people like Sidney Evans in 19th Century Brighton.

But although the environment has changed radically in 125 years, the goal of those working for The Argus remains the same – to inform, educate and entertain.

Today carrier pigeons have been replaced by mobile phones and the computer. Nowadays a reporter can get to the scene of a major incident anywhere in Sussex within minutes.

If deadlines are tight, a story can be phoned in direct from the scene.

A copytaker will type the reporter's words on to his or her computer and, with the press of a button, the story will arrive on the news desk, where it is polished before being sent to the subs desk to be edited to fit the page.

Background research, which enables reporters to place their story within a wider context, is no longer carried out in a dusty library amidst piles of thick encyclopaedias.

The internet means an almost endless stream of information is available.

Life has changed for photographers who, with the advent of digital technology, can now tell instantly if they have got the picture they wanted.

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