By Harry Mottram: I saw a book in Bristol Library in my lunch hour entitled ‘How to be a Feature Writer’ and I read it and thought, ‘that’s me.’ As an advertising copywriter in Bristol, I spent every day writing promotions for cars, adverts for new homes and brochures on hotels but features were different. They could be informative, gossipy, reflective as well as hard hitting and controversial. I decided that was what I was going to be – a journalist and feature writer. It was 1996, I was married with four children, in debt, behind with the mortgage and earning a modest living at a small advertising agency which was slowly going bust.
The book’s advice was simple: start writing features and send them to editors for consideration. And that’s what I did – covering just about every subject from politics to sport, history to what’s on. My articles and stories began to appear in print – but getting paid was not so easy – almost non-existent – something that hasn’t change. Until one day I had a phone call from the editor of the local newspaper. He asked me if I would like a job as a sub-editor. I was so green I asked, ‘what’s a sub-editor?’
It was to be my first fully editorial job – even though it was on a freelance basis. Sub-editing was a great education as your job is not only to layout the pages and keep to the house style but there was a lot of rewriting to make the copy readable. And it was a chance to expand my skills. I drew a weekly cartoon, wrote a regular history piece complete with illustration, gave advice on house buying and wrote up sports reports. After three years I was offered a job as a magazine editor in Bristol covering anything from wedding fashion to motorcycles, horse riding to parenting, and what to do in Oxford and actually just about anywhere else. As a feature writer you simply mug up on a subject and pass yourself off as an expert. I used to get young women asking me for advice on wedding dresses and lingerie, bikers asking about engine oil and chain tension and tourists asking if Oxford’s Ashmolean was worth visiting. Mostly I simply bluffed an answer – and quoted something from Wikipedia pretending I knew it all the time!
After that job I took a series of positions as a district reporter on local newspapers in Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire – always one step ahead of the publications downsizing and closing their doors as readers opted to get their news free on the internet. The best thing about being a reporter was you got to know an area and all the main people by virtue of travelling around to interview and report. Council meetings, MPs, teachers, artists, farmers – a rich source of news – not all of it exactly ground-breaking. The main task as always was to find the lead – the main story on the front page together with a photo and a headline. I used to dream of coming across a house on fire on the way to work or the scene of a murder or major robbery with police closing off the road. One day on the way to the office in Exeter I was cycling along a back road when I came across a house that was on fire. It was a classic scene with fire fighters, hosepipes, sirens, police and the occupants being comforted by an ambulance crew. ‘Great’ I thought ‘that’s the front page sorted.’ Yes, bad news is good news to reporters – up to a point of course. Something I’ve mentioned to friends who seem disgusted by the thought – but sadly it is true. On the whole readers prefer reading about scandals, deaths and tragedies over who won first prize at the local flower show.
Politics and elections are a mainstay of news. A subject I enjoyed as all the candidates would be keen to meet you and have their say – when normally it could be hard to even get them to reply to a phone call. In one local election I got the names of two candidates mixed up. The UKIP candidate was Davis and the Green Party’s man was Davies. When I saw the newspaper the next day my heart fell. The UKIP chap was according to my report keen on the European Union, while the Green Party candidate said climate change was a hoax. I rang them both up to apologise and thankfully both thought it was very funny and had been inundated by friends taking the mic. Phew.
One MP I used to phone up for a quote would say ‘You know me and what I think – just write something.’ I did each time and he’d say, ‘you make me seem intelligent.’ Another one would email me his words and admit his wife wrote all his stuff – while one Conservative councillor said he was really Labour but pretended to be a Tory as ‘I wouldn’t get elected’. How times change.
As a sub-editor and editor your spelling quickly improves – but we are all human. On another occasion I spelt Christmas wrong in a headline and despite a circulation of tens of thousands only one person contacted the newspaper to point it out. So maybe I’m not the only one who is subject to occasional word blindness. One subject that always got a lot of letters were steam engines on heritage lines. If you wrote down the wrong number – for instance if you said that the Stanier Black Five engine was a 2-6-2 wheel configuration instead of a 4-6-0 the letters would pour in. Handy in a quiet news week – and I must confess occasionally I’d ‘accidently’ misname an engine or a branch line to ensure we had enough letters that week.
I have been asked many times – often by concerned parents whose teenager wants to be a journalist – what advice should I give. The answer is to write. A diary, a blog, a report on a local issue, a feature on Donald Trump’s mental state – but preferably a subject you know about. So often work experience students at the newspaper would say they never wrote anything or read any newspapers or magazines. But the ones that did invariably found a way (as I did) to get a job – and even a career with a combination of writing and soaking up information in books like ‘How to be a Feature Writer.’
The Alternative Correspondent is written and edited by Harry Mottram of Axbridge in Somerset
For more visit: www.harrymottram.co.uk or follow him on Facebook, X, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and God knows where else!
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