"Yuri Gagarin's Big Adventure"

A review of Scottish Daily Mail by John J. Watt written on Thursday 27th of September 2007

When Yuri went into space as the first man ever to do so, I was the "make-up man" (ie the tradesman responsible for composing the front page). This was when the Scottish Daily Mail was produced in Edinburgh - in 1961. There were five editions each morning, so when Yuri "did his thing" the front page was completely emptied five times and therefore updated five times. That was the busiest night of my life, but I enjoyed it thoroughly having been a science fiction fan for years and this was a dream coming true!

Regretfully, I neglected to pick up a copy of any of those editions at the time, something I still wish that I had done.

I am now almost 75 years old, but I suppose that it is possible that some of the men I worked with back then before emigrating to Australia are still alive? The Comp Room foreman was known as "Big Bill" and the night printer as "The Wee Man"! Strangely enought in later years I achieved the position of Night Printer myself - at The Canberra Times - also a daily morning newspaper (the only one in Australia to carry the news of President Kennedy's assassination the morning it happened..

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