Page 1 of 2

Former women’s editor Tina Currie didn’t let a little thing like having children get in the way of producing her weekly column. She shared her memories with readers to mark 125 years of the Bath Chronicle.

I joined the editorial staff as a junior reporter in November 1957.

In 1963 I was made women’s editor, a position I held for 37 years. My column continued to appear every week until my retirement in 1999.

Women were very much in the minority in newspapers then. I wasn’t the first woman journalist at the Chronicle, but, for quite a few years, was the only female reporter – consequently my appearance often raised eyebrows on jobs where they were expecting a man.

On one occasion the editor was rapped over the knuckles by Bath Magistrates for exposing a sensitive young woman to the sort of evidence that was being revealed in a particularly unsavoury case.

When I joined, the paper was produced entirely from its Westgate Street headquarters. The premises were old, dirty and noisy and smelt of a distinctive mix of hot metal and printers’ ink.

The paper was certainly the most immediate source of local news then. A story could break at midday and be in that day’s Late Extra edition.

Next page…