printers

SIGNPOSTS IN PRINT
Starting out to learn a trade is often a puzzling business and it is always necessary to have certain signposts to guide one along the
right road—the road to efficiency. These signposts take the form of rules and instructions for the guidance of all students of the trade.
Such signposts are used to lighten the burdens one must carry during the whole of one's career as a printer. They are doubly important
in the early stages while one is learning the trade.
It is important that all boys who are going to become printers should know certain basic things about the trade. Thus all will find these
signposts lead along the same way for a time, even if some intend to be compositors, setting up the type, while others decide to be
machine minders, doing the actual printing.
They must learn the same things; do the same exercises for a time. Later the work divides and each will carry along a different branch,
running almost parallel to one another.
So all boys in the Printing Department, whatever section they intend to follow must start in the Junior Room all doing similar work;
learning the cases, type sizes; the tools and materials of the trade. Compositors will learn something about presses and machine minders
about type setting. The understanding of the other fellow's job is always of interest and help in doing one's work.
So think of rules and instructions as signposts showing the surest and quickest road to a thorough knowledge of Printing.
Summer 1965

'THE PEOPLE' DONATES PRINTING PRESS
A MODERN proofing press has been a much needed piece of equipment in the Printing Department, but other calls on Barnardo
funds were more urgent and we have had to wait. Now we have had a large slice of good fortune, as a friend of the Homes has given
us about eleven hundred pounds, the cost of the machine, and so we are able to have the press.
We know this friend only through the columns of The People. Each year, at Christmas, the readers of this newspaper subscribe to an
appeal by 'Man Of the People', and it is from this fund that Dr. Barnardo's Homes have been helped so generously. So behind
this pseudonym 'Man ()' the People' we have a good friend who, with the help of his supporters, has enabled us to achieve our ambition
to have an up-to-date machine of this kind.
Every boy who uses the machine during the next few years will be helped on his way to becoming a better printer by gaming experience
on the press, so the gift will continue its usefulness for a good many years. We are all very thankful to these generous donors.

A few technical details of the Model 121 Soldan Proofmaster.
Maximum sheet 31 in. by 22 in.
Minimum sheet 6 in. by 4 in.
Print area 30 1/2 in by 21 in.
Overall size 52 in. by 81 1/2 in.
Net weight 18 1/2 cwt.
Micrometer front and side lays; automatic wash-up;
power-driven ink drum; plastic-covered rollers.
W. H. S. M,
Goldonian 1964

MY TRADE
My trade, which is printing, is proving one of great interest. It is not easy arid one has to be very much alert from the beginning.
I am a beginner having only been in the printers since September, 1949. In the Junior room where I happen to be, we work to a formula.
After several preliminaries we have to complete three specially arranged jobs, all pertaining to the elementary facts of printing.
These have to be thoroughly understood before we can make any further progress. After a time we get small display jobs which prove
a little more interesting. This helps us to learn the various type faces, which I can assure you are very numerous. One day a week we
have theory of printing which is most essential. After completing twelve months in the Junior room, we are transferred to the
Intermediate section, and finally the Senior section. Printing is a great craft and I thoroughly recommend it.
A. WINCHESTER

THE BALLAD OF YOUNG JENKINS
An Exercise in Punctuation and a Warning to Printer Old Boys!

P.S. His ghost still walks around the Beane Read and Bengeo districts most evenings after dark, usually'with-two-sweethearts.

If you still cannot fill in the Punctuation Marks, look at the bottom of page
Goldonian 1949

she put the note straight in the fire,
The flame but slow stole on;
She broke another coal in two
And put a

And so the note was burned, and she
Retired to bed quite-weary.
Meanwhile poor Jenkins waited for
The answer to his

It never came. His mind gave way
And fairly went to rackets.
One rope-end he tied round his neck,
The other round some

For once, although teetotal, he
Allowed himself a drop.
And, quite cut up, he when cut down
Had come to a

Young Jenkins was a printer man,
A likely youth, but rash;
He thought he ought to shine in life
And tried to cut a

He loved his master's daughter; she
Adored him—so he thought.
But, oh ! the ways of womankind !
His love it came to

He wrote a note in which he let
His doting fancy frisk;
She cried, "O what a risk to run!
Oh! what an ,

Now in the note he cried;'If you
Don't to my pleading hark
I'll die! I'll die!"—but she did not
His

PRINTING DEPARTMENT—INVESTMENT
DURING THE early part of 1966 a Committee was formed to study the equipment then in use in the Printing Department at Goldings.
The Committee was constituted as follows:
Professor Sir Alan Moncrieff, Mr. R. L. S. Harrison, J.P., Mr. L. Viney, together with the Headmaster and Mr. Stackwood.
Later Mr. E. F. Andrews, J.P. (National Graphical Association) and Mr. A. Stockwell, Lecturer at London College of Printing, were
invited to attend as advisers.
The outcome of two meetings was a strong recommendation from this Committee to our Headquarters that considerable expenditure
was necessary to raise the efficiency of the Department and also that additional instructors be engaged.
Permission to spend initially a sum of £7,000 on machinery and equipment was granted, as was permission to appoint two additional
instructors.
The composing room now has a new look, being re-furnished with metal units of modern design, and certain precision equipment
has been introduced to aid better composition, particularly of multi-colour jobs.
In the machine room two automatic presses have been installed; one a German machine capable of 5,000 impressions per hour on
sheet-size of 20" x 30", the other a small automatic platen of a similar output on paper of 10" x 15". A lining-up table, a precision
make-up instrument of Swiss manufacture, is also installed within this section.
Apprentices and staff are very appreciative of these additions and are putting them to good use.
A sincere thank you to our Committee for their help and to Headquarters for financing these improvements. It is hoped that the
Committee will meet shortly to discuss the next phase of re-equipment.
R. STACKWOOD
Goldonian 1966