Visit to the Journal-Pioneer

Back in the fall, when I was spending time out at Campbell’s Printing arranging to purchase and the get delivered my Golding Jobber No. 8 letterpress, I had a good opportunity to talk with Bill Campbell about his life as a printer.  Part of Bill’s working life was spent at the Journal-Pioneer newspaper in Summerside, and Bill had many stories to tell about his days there, the people he worked with, and the equipment he used.

This afternoon I found myself in downtown Summerside for a meeting and, after lunch at Samuel’s Coffee House (very highly recommended: espresso, in Summerside — who would have ever thought!), I decided to drop in to the Journal-Pioneer office next door to see if there was any vestigal printing or typesetting equipment around that I might take a look at.

At the front desk I introduced myself and the friendly woman there asked me to wait a moment and then disappeared around a corner. A few seconds later she motioned for me to come around, and I was ushered into the office of Publisher Sandy Rundle with whom I spent a very pleasant 30 minutes swapping newspaper stories and learning more about how production and printing work in the digital age (when I worked in the composing room of the Peterborough Examiner we were still a decidedly analog shop).

Prince Edward Island’s scale can be frustrating, confounding and stiffling; it can also result in happenstance like this, where guy off the street is invited in to chat with the publisher of the daily newspaper.

Comments

Olle Jonsson's picture
Olle Jonsson on January 24, 2012 - 10:27 Permalink

Fun. The great coffee shop (with machines and wild stock) in Malmö is also run by a man named Samuel.