A few people have been tweeting about missing their newsroom during the pandemic and their pictures show gleaming ranks of Macs, which caused me to reminisce about my first newsroom. This was at the Wrexham Leader, North Wales...

This had been the offices of the ‘Big Leader’ and had previously occupied much of the building on Lord St, but the company had relocated the production operation to a new development in Mold, so we were left with one office, underneath the stairwell of the building...

It was lightless, airless, and its doorway was often home to Angelo, one of Wrexham’s tramps, who would liberally urinate on the front step of a morning...

The office was shared with the ‘ad girls’ - Matti, Sheila and Gwyneth, three matriarchs who would ply us with coffee when they sensed that the previous evening’s libations had taken their toll...

The reporting staff were @TonyAtBermuda, chief reporter, myself and @LouiseTalks the two juniors, plus Ian ‘Scoop’ Burt. Yes, Scoop, who introduced himself saying: “I’m interested in fast cars, fast women and stories - in that order.” You can draw your own conclusions...

The final member of the team was Les Evans, the Leader’s legendary photographer. Les had been a bus conductor, so knew literally everyone in the town...

So, one day the building developed a leak. Our office sat below the toilets for the whole building, and the leak from the toilets was seeping down the walls and into an extractor fan in our kitchen, with predictably foul-smelling results. Les got straight on the case...

He phoned the editor of the Leader, Reg Herbert, to tell him what had happened. The conversation went like this...

Les: Reg, the shit’s hit the fan.
Reg: Why, what’s happened.
Les: The shit’s hit the fan
Reg: What do you mean
Les: The shit has hit the fan
Reg: Les, what are you on about?
Les: I’ve told you, the shit, it has hit the fan...

I think Gwyneth took the phone off him in the end...

So, enjoy your shiny newsrooms when you get back to them, and spare a thought for those of us who risked dysentery working back then