Grauniad mispritns wern’t typestetters’ falt

As a one-time compositor at the Guardian and a loyal member of the National Graphical Association trade union, I should like to rebut some of Geoff Andrews’ remarks (Letters, 14 May).

The vast majority of marks (errors) in those hot-metal days were the fault of the Teletypesetter system. A story would be keyboarded in Manchester and transmitted to London as a teleprinter spool; it was then fed on to an adapted typesetting machine. This may have saved money, but it resulted in a horrendous number of misprints that had to be corrected. Needless to say, we didn’t get to them all.

As the London typesetters were not responsible for these marks, a small charge was negotiated. However, all other corrections were not paid for. Newspapers were set at piecework rates in those days, in common with all other titles.

I don’t suppose Geoff remembers me, but he has my best wishes.
Mick Ochiltree
Benfleet, Essex

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