August 2008 Archives

ADRIAN SUDBURY's award winning blog is to be captured in a book.

All his Baldy's Blog entries - and many of the fantastic comments of
support he recieved - will be included in Baldy's Book, due out in early September.

As well as the blog, there are also many family photos of Sudders and
pictures from his time as a reporter on the Huddersfield Daily Examiner.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown - who has vowed to back Sudders' bone marrow
campaign - has written a personal foreword to the 144-page paperback book.
In it he says: "My father told me when I was young that everyone has the
chance to make their mark on this world, whether for good or bad.
"Adrian has left his mark for good."

Radio 5Live presenter Victoria Derbyshire and Trinity Mirror plc chief executive Sly
Bailey also pay tribute to Adrian's courage and personality.

All profits from the book will go to the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust.

Baldy's Book is priced £7.99 plus £1.50 P+P (UK) and is available from
www.merseyshop.com or call 0845 1430001 to place your order.

Readers of this blog will recall my postings about fellow journalist Adrian Sudbury and his brave fight with leukaemia.

Adrian, who worked for one of our sister papers, the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, sadly died this week at the age of 27 years.

He fought a public battle with leukaemia after being diagnosed with the disease in 2006 and he chronicled his fight in his award-winning Baldy's Blog - http://baldyblog.freshblogs.co.uk/

After a bone marrow transplant was rejected by his body, Adrian decided in May he was not going to have any further chemotherapy, and since then has devoted his remaining months to raising awareness about bone marrow transplants.

Adrian embarked on a concerted media campaign, hoping to make classes on blood, organ and bone marrow transplantation compulsory in all sixth form colleges.

Adrian's editor at the Examiner Roy Wright, said that thousands of readers from across the globe became friends to Adrian through the website, all part of Adrian's Army.

He said: "Sudders is a tragic loss to his family, his many friends and to journalism"

August is often described as the 'silly season' in the newspaper industry.

However, it has been a particularly good news week and today's Gazette is one of the strongest editions we have had for a while.

It seemed everything happened last Friday with a lorry hitting a bus stop and over turning and then unexploded World War Two bombs being found near the site of Uxbridge Lido.

This is where the website really comes into its own as we were able to break the stories online pretty much as they happened.

And on Saturday part of the town centre in Uxbridge was closed off for a number of hours after a serious road traffic accident.

There are also a number of other strong issue stories in this week's paper and a round up off A-level success stories from across the borough.

With a lot of people appearing to be away on holiday this week I am not expecting it to be one of our strongest sales weeks but it's still rewarding for all the team when a really good newsy paper comes together.

Today's news meeting will see us gearing up for our coverage of the GCSE results which are out tomorrow and again we will be looking at all the opportunities both for the website and next week's paper.

And with the bank holiday weekend ahead our deadlines have all been advanced making it a tough few days as we crack on with next week's paper.

So it's your first day back from holiday and you have a hundred and one emails and other things to catch up with after more than a week out of the office.

The phone rings and your news editor tells you his neck has locked and he can't move and will not be in today.

Great, what a return. Sorry Chris I really do hope the neck gets better quickly.

So sleeves rolled up I have been trying to keep the good ship Gazette on the strsight and narrow, luckily there were several cracking stories already in the bag for this week's edition.

Anyway back to the news editing and I will keep you posted on the health of Mr Longhurst.

By the way I had a good holiday. Explored Northumberland for the first time and would certainly recommend it - and it didn't even rain every day.

We have featured in the Gazette that a number of pubs in the borough have been forced to close.

The introduction of the smoking ban last year and the current credit crunch appear to be the main reasons for their closure.

A number of other pubs are also reporting hard times with their takings down on previous years.

This week I had an experience at a pub, outside of the borough, that may explain why some of them are finding times tough and why they might need to adopt a different outlook on life.

I met a friend for a quick early evening drink and he had his 10-year-old daughter with him.
We sat outside and enjoyed a drink without any problems until the clock struck seven.

We were then informed that children were not allowed on the premises of this particular pub after 7pm, even if they were outside.

So we were forced to drink up and leave, when we had every intention of staying for another drink and putting some more money in to pub's the till.

This kind of out dated attitude in certain pubs may explain why some of them are going out of business.

They need to take a more Continental approach and be much more child and family orientated if they want to survive.