A LOT has changed in Greg Miles’ time at the newspaper, but the constant desire to tell local stories hasn’t.
Today, Mr Miles is retiring after 48 years with the same company, producing multiple mastheads that have since merged and folded in the Gannawarra and Loddon shires.
He started working at then Kerang New Times on May 2, 1977 at the age of 19 under tradesman Nicky Guest.
Mr Miles first worked in production as an apprentice compositor, then transferred to advertising on July 1, 2010.
He said his first job was sweeping floors, but also scraping lead off the spaces for Max Maclean’s Linotype.
“Using a production camera to make negatives and screening photos, composing pages using offset and a bit of typesetting,” Mr Miles said.
“The usual four blocks of two weeks for trade school.”
Mr Miles said the office was a hive of activity and occupied by about 20 staff, with commercial printing an arm of the business.
“We always had about four or five staff just typesetting all the contributed stories on Monday morning and journos’ stories also,” he said.
“We’d type for about three or four hours then get into making up the pages and doing the photos to paste up on the pages.
“Way less stories are contributed by the public now and it is much easier to do – go figure.”
Mr Miles said there was a large staff turnover as was normal for journalists in small country newspapers eager to get their foot in the door.
“My boss was Lloyd Jenkins, who was firm but I found him fair,” he said.
“We moved to Macs then PCs which made it all more efficient. Also meant the journos’ stories didn’t have to be typeset.
“We used to do a full newspaper on about two or three megabits of memory, using floppy discs.
“Now we make sure any photos for printing are about that size, otherwise the quality is not good enough.
“Ended up head of production and still pre-press set up for printing jobs. I really enjoyed that.”
Mr Miles was in charge of local sport for three or four years doing all the subbing and layouts for sport pages.
“Ken Jenkins was always good and I was comfortable enough to let him know if I thought he was wrong – and vice versa,” he said.
“Lloyd left and KJ became boss, which was good.
“It made the workplace more like home. If you wanted a coffee you could get one.”
Mr Miles said he was asked to relocate to the Swan Hill office but declined, instead taking a vacant position as a sales rep to remain in his hometown.
“Tough gig for a start as it felt most businesses thought I was just asking for money, but eventually received support from the local business community which made it worthwhile,” he said.
Mr Jenkins, who was managing editor up until 2020, said Mr Miles remained through multiple changes in technology and numerous publication name changes and expansion.
“Back in those days, during the transition from hot-metal letterpress to offset, the compositors constructed the stories, photos and advertising on the pages as directed by the editor,” Mr Jenkins said.
He added Mr Miles has always proven to be “proficient, adaptable and loyal” as computer graphics technology helped create and refine the modern style of newspaper presentation.
“He has also reported on sport, particularly cricket and football, and in recent times has presented his weekly Komment by Kurl gossip column,” he said.
“His adaptability has been evident in recent years when he transitioned to advertising sales.
“His creative graphics knowledge has helped him in the market place and his personable nature has endeared him to clients.
“He has also worked extensively during night time hours delivering newspapers to newsagents.
“Greg is one of those rare people these days who has spent his entire career in the one workplace.
“As someone who has mirrored that situation, I have witnessed Greg’s work from apprenticeship days through to almost retirement.”
Mr Miles thanked the countless people he’s worked with and alongside.
He admits he “couldn’t name a quarter of them”.
“The community is great,” he said, noting he was retiring locally.
“Most likely will miss the chats with clients. Looking to doing not too much. No list from Donna yet.
“Will still umpire cricket and still support local footy. Might even push for the bike trail for Kerang to Koondrook as I think that is still needed.”
Mr Miles acknowledged two of the biggest headlines during his time.
“Worse thing to happen in my time was the train crash and floods,” he said.
“The flood calendar was a great success for the community and this initiated the local calendar given out free. Great support from businesses.”
Mr Miles said there were too many funny instances to mention.
“Although we (myself and another staff member) did nearly burn the building down once,” he said.
Mr Miles escaped being in the news… until now.
How times have changed
DURING his working life, the Kerang New Times merged with the Pyramid Hill Advertiser to become The Northern Times.
The company later published the Cohuna Farmers’ Weekly and a merged publication covering the Wedderburn and Boort areas was the Loddon Times, which went out of publication after the pandemic.
Prior to this, the Kerang and Cohuna newspapers merged to became the Gannawarra Times.
