Another contender for the title of Britain’s longest-serving working journalist has emerged in the shape of a former editor whose career spans an incredible eight decades.

Tony Langmack, left, started out on the Berwick Advertiser in the 1940s, and is still filing copy to the paper 65 years later.

Now 80, his cuttings book includes the floods of 1948, Jim Clark winning the world driver’s championship in 1963, and the Susan Maxwell murder of 1982.

On the only occasion he was offered another job, he turned it down after taking an evening stroll along the River Tweed and deciding he did not want to leave such beautiful surroudings.

When Tony began his career in August 1945, many of the paper’s staff were yet to return from war service.

He recalls: “When I started there was a staff of only 16, with 15 more coming back from the forces within a year. At its peak there was a staff of more than 100 at Berwick and 25 more at Selkirk.”

Getting around from story to story was also very different to now,

“The transport consisted of one bicycle and the business car available with driver for out of town jobs. Local bus services and the Berwick to Spittal ferry were frequently used,” he said.

Becoming chief reporter in 1951 and then editor in 1978, Tony saw the biggest changes to the industry come with the introduction of new technology in the 1990s.

“The firm switched to computer setting. From that date, I believe that as well as being journalists, the editorial staff became technicians,” he said.

Having spent so many years at a single paper he was tempted only once to take on a new challenge, when he was offered a job at the Evening Chronicle in Newcastle.

“The day I got the letter confirming the appointment, I went for a walk along the new road on a beautiful summer’s evening. The sun was setting just over the Tweed and I turned to my wife and said ‘Why the hell should I move from here?'”

Tony’s dedication to the paper saw him recieve an MBE for services to journalism and the local community in 1993, officially retiring from the paper two years later.

However, he continues to file copy weekly – everything from Rotary and Probus club reports to the occasional front page lead.

Current Advertiser editor Stuart Laundy said: “Tony not only remains a valuable member of our small team, but his local knowledge makes him a superb contact for the rest of us.

“There is very little going on in the town that Tony does not know about and hopefully, I will be continue to receive his copy for a good few years yet.”

Comments

Paul Robertson (27/01/2010 17:58:49)
I worked with Tony at the Tweeddale Press Group. He is an incredibly enthusiastic, dedicated and professional guy who taught me so much. Great to see he’s still going strong.

Supersub (28/01/2010 09:58:18)
“career spans an incredible eight decades.”
“started out on the Berwick Advertiser in the 1940s, and is still filing copy to the paper 65 years later.”
Either somebody’s calculator ain’t working, or the Tiser can now cover stories from the future!
Well done though, Tony … if I am still going at 80, I’d be a happy bunny.

Paul Linford (28/01/2010 10:11:03)
40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s makes eight decades, Supersub.

jonb (29/01/2010 14:33:27)
Oh dear, answering back to a sub. Back in my Brighton Argus days, Barney would give you a swipe round the ear if you did that. Or he’d get a downtable sub to do it.