As most OHs remember, contributing to school newsletters was all part of the experience; for some, such as Ted Loveday (L 57), the pleasure was also in the publishing. Here, we let Ted take up his own story – one of taking on the challenge of his Housemaster to make the Lawrence newsletter profitable.

In 1958, while I was still at Haileybury, my father died suddenly and, amongst other things, I inherited his old portable Smith Corona typewriter.

The typewriter held great significance for me. As joint Managing Director of Brunskill and Loveday Limited, a manufacturer of theatre sets and props, my father had used that typewriter every weekday to correspond with many of the Theatres’ Producers and Designers, etc.

On Friday nights in the school holidays the typewriter was brought home and loaned to me, to be returned to my father on Monday mornings when he went back to work [I also had a desk (built, of course, by B&L) and, unknown to me, was being trained by my father to run a business.]

It was in the early 1960s, when I was editor of The Lawrentian, that this typewriter came into its own, being used to create every edition of the magazine I worked on. As it had been in my father’s lifetime, this Smith Corona proved to be an excellent servant.

Antiquated

The process of producing the magazine may seem somewhat antiquated now. We were supplied with quarto-sized white paper, waxed duplicator stencils and printed covers [which, I think, came via Harold Pamphilion in the Bookshop, who also, on a manual duplicating machine, kindly printed the end products}.

As you may be aware, the stencils were made of a sheet of waxed paper fixed at the top to a backing paper. The typewriter, with its ribbon removed, was then used to punch the letters through the waxed paper.

Every so often, when cutting a stencil, the letters got gunged up with the wax and so, to remove the wax from the letters I used to pour a ‘controlled’ [ha! ha!] amount of lighter fuel petrol onto the row of letter keys and set fire to it !! [Ah, those were the days !!]

While typography was relatively simple, illustrations were less so. When I hit upon the idea of adding drawings I had no means of reproduction – not even a stylus. So the point of my school drawing compass came into play [and likewise had its point periodically burnt using lighter fuel petrol].

The editorial team

When I started at The Lawrentian, Graham Foster (L 56) and Mike Freedman (L 57) were my co-Editors; Graham having co-opted Mike and me to help him out before bowing out. Tim Nicholson (L 57) [Lt.Col. TJ Nicholson] with whom I and 2 other bods shared a study, was also a co-Editor. Tony Temple (L 59) [later AD Temple QC] came on board first as sports reporter and then as a co-editor.

E F Williams (Staff, 1942-72) (EFW) was Lawrence’s Housemaster at the time. When Mike Freedman and I took it over The Lawrentian, it had been running at a noticeable loss and EFW more or less wished/intended to close it down.

I remember him somewhat abruptly saying “What do you intend to do with it, Loveday ?” “Make a profit, Sir,” I replied “And how do you intend to do that?” “By sticking-up the price and widening the circulation”. And sticking-up the price and widening the circulation we did and, with great pleasure and satisfaction, after all had been paid for [paper, stencils, covers, etc] we presented a profit to the somewhat surprised EFW!

On another occasion, I intended to publish a page called “a Daily” in The Lawrentian but was stopped from doing so by EFW. The reason? My use of the words ‘Toilet Rolls’ in its first column – which were not acceptable!! Ah, well … Oh what fun!

Fond memories and good friends

Despite my being ‘at daggers drawn’ with EFW for most of my time at the Senior School, I became a good friend of his after his retirement when I used to visit him at his home near Minehead.

Other editors followed after I left Haileybury and were kind enough to send me copies of their splendid products. Although The Laurentian we produced now looks so old-fashioned and well out-of-date by to-day’s standards, it was both fun and challenging to produce; I enjoyed it immensely.