I had offset litho printing skills passed on to me by one of my party comrades who ran a printing operation from his cellar. It was a cooperative business and as well as a couple of machines had full plate making, photo reproduction and processing cameras. It was another of my roles for the local branch Labour Party. At election times it was not uncommon to produce a new town wide leaflet every couple of days. You could easily do 10 or more during the campaign. Back in the 90's and during elections my day would go something like this.
I would take master copies produced on a laser printer for front and back sides of the A4 leaflet and any photo's required to my mate, drop them off on my way into work. Roger would produce the metal plates for me with any photos dot screened into the white space provided. I picked the plates up on my way home from work, got home at about 5.45pm had a bit of tea then went round to our base at the Weavers, (GMB Union Rooms, now the Post Office). I had my litho set up on a small table at one end of the committee room. There was a large solid mahogany table for meetings in the room that was ideal for knocking up and stacking the paper ready for the machine. I had to knock up about 6000 sheets for a 5000 leaflet run as there was wastage during the run. Our machine was about 40 years old when we got it and it had a slightly bent main shaft which added to the attrition when running. First plate onto the machine and ink it up loading the ink feed with a spatula from the large tin of printing ink. Start the run and put all 6000 sheets through. Re stacking them as they came off the feeder discarding any duffers. Change the plate and run it in on spare sheets to get the plate coated. Complete the run for the other side, boxing up as the run progressed. Clean down the machine with spirits which took about half an hour. Bag and bin all the rejects and failed sheets. Load up the van, lock up and go home, 11pm to midnight if you were lucky.
Finished leaflets were picked up and passed on to the distribution network.
While I was doing that, another mate had produced the text and stories for the next leaflet and dropped it off at ours. I had the DTP so I usually got a brew and wound down producing the next leaflet dropping the stories into our template, when happy I saved everything off ready to repeat the operation the following day. It was busy to say the least. I think of these days every time I go into our Post Office.
All changed when the Constituency bought a Copifax machine after we successfully got our own M.P. I could nip on to Nelson with my masters after work in Colne. shove them on the machine which would scan them and run out the copies in not much longer than it took to go down stairs and make a brew and drink it. Finished work at 5pm and home by not much after 6pm, nothing to clean down and no mucky hands, happy days.
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