BARRY Pringle was not just there for the beginning of the North West Star in 1966, he was there before the beginning joining the paper about eight months before the first edition.
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“I worked for a commercial printing service owned by Roy Douglas and Sir Asher (Joel) bought that,” Mr Pringle said.
“And unbeknown to everybody what was going on, he was gradually setting it up to be a newspaper.”
Young Barry, who had joined the printers from the mines, was quickly let in on the secret.
“That was in ‘65 and it was kept hush-hush until ‘66, there was just a couple of us in on it, Roy Douglas, a woman called Connie Greaves and me were the only ones working there.”
In our recently published exclusive extract from Sir Asher Joel’s memoirs, Sir Asher recognised at the time that Mount Isa was a city of great opportunity.
“I decided it should be the location of my first media venture,” Sir Asher said.
“Mount Isa became an extension of my life to the stage where it became a second home with all of my family becoming involved.”
The problem was there already was a newspaper in the city, the Rupert Murdoch owned-Mount Isa Mail, a bi-weekly evening publication that had a fairly chequered career.
“I realised I would strike opposition in taking on the Mail, however the editorial quality of this newspaper was so poor I felt that if I could get a foothold I could swamp the opposition,” Sir Asher said.
Eventually the big printers started to rumble to produce the first edition on May 12, 1966 which proved a monumental labour.
Sir Asher said his workers threw themselves into production of the first edition but there were major teething problems.
“Barry Pringle and Alan Schumacher and two leading hands on the compositing staff worked day and night sweating in the humid atmosphere,” he said.
“We were scheduled to come out in the morning but it was quite obvious we would not meet the deadline. Our staff laboured tirelessly without sleep.”
Sir Asher said the experience was traumatic and Barry felt it too.
“We started work at eight o’clock in the morning thinking we were going to do our normal day shift commercial printing and put the paper out that night.” Barry said.
“Well we didn’t get the paper out til two o’clock the next afternoon, a 30-hour shift.”
But that wasn’t the end of it.
“We went home for two hours and come back at four o’clock and start up the next day’s paper,” he said.
“We were dead.”
Barry believes the end product was appreciated by the people of Mount Isa.
“We were pretty proud of ourselves in doing what we did do with limited staff,” he said.
Barry was the compositor of the new operation and operated the monotype to do the social printing.
“When doing the paper I was making up the pages,” he said.
“We had a monotype caster and two linotypes and we also had a Klischograph machine which was a block-making machine.
“You’d put a photo onto a sheet of glass, you ran a needle across the top which cut a block for you and that was how we made our photos.”
Among the many people Barry remembers working at the Star was Bruno Cullen who would later become CEO of the Brisbane Broncos and Queensland Country Credit Union chairman.
“He (Bruno) started when he was 16 sweeping the floors at the place,” he said.
Barry worked at the paper until 1999 when he left after a difference of opinion with new manager Jim Nicholls and new owner Michael Joel (who took over Carpentaria Newspapers after his father Sir Asher’s death in 1998).
Originally from Sydney where he served his apprenticeship at the government printing office, Barry moved back to New South Wales to the small town of Wingen near Scone in the Upper Hunter Valley.
“I’m 73 now so I’m retired but I worked at a Hunter Valley printing commercial place for a good few years and at Scone Aircraft Maintenance.”
Barry still has fond memories of Mount Isa where he ended up by accident.
“I was travelling around Australia with a mate and we just got stuck there (in Mount Isa),” he said.
"I ended up there for 35 years.”
Although gone now for 17 years he still misses the place but believes the town has changed – and not necessarily for the better.
“I’ve got a mate who travels through there now and then and they are a bit disappointed when they compare to what we had,” he said.
“I had four different houses and now they’ve gone and looked at those houses and they reckon they are run down because of fly in fly out, which is a bit disappointing.”
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See next Thursday’s paper for Tony McGrady’s memories of the start of the North West Star and the story of his unlikely friendship with Sir Asher Joel.
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Can you help with the names in the top photo?
If you can fill the gaps ring the office on 4743 3355 or email nwseditorial@fairfaxmedia.com.au
Standing: ? (Photographer), Steve Williamson (Printer), Doug Strike (Compositor), Kel Fairbairn (General Manager), ? , Noel Wright (Production Manager), John Jerkic (Apprentice Printer), John McKechnie, Joe Twible (Linotype Operator), Bill Draney (Commercial Printing Foreman), Barry Pringle (Compositor, Computer Systems Manager).
Middle Row: ?, Barbara ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ? (Trainee Photographer), ?.
Front Row: ?, John Wilson (Sport Reporter), Wendy Strathearn (Advertising), David Hooper (Scoop – Reporter), ?, Ken Belton (Advertising Manager – previously compositor).
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
