Printing at the Convent....

On the letters page in my daily newspaper some time ago the mention of the Adana printing press reminded me of my early days as an apprentice compositor or "printer's devil". The Adana press was advertised in the fifties and was aimed at the amateur printer.

I served my apprenticeship at a printing firm in Worthing and during the latter part I was "volunteered" to go to the Home of the Holy Rood at Findon to meet one of the sisters who needed some practical advice on an aspect of printing.

You can imagine that working with a lot of men I was the subject for some amusement and leg pulling as " . . .young Roger is going to the convent with all those nuns!" I naturally kept quiet about my experiences of going there as a Saturday butcher boy in the past.

Having left work after dinner break I set off on my motorbike and presented myself at the rear entrance and was introduced to an elderly sister . . . ushered into the lift and went up to a small room at the top of the convent. It was the first time I had ever been inside the building and found it really fascinating.

In the room was the familiar smell of printing ink and there were several cabinets of type cases, an Adana press operated by hand and also a larger treadle platen press. She had trouble "locking up" a job for at that time had only used wooden quoins to secure a job in the "chase" (an iron frame).

The dear lady was having trouble with some Hempel quoins (wedge shaped metal blocks with serrated edges which were locked with a special key) and so I was able to demonstrate how to use them. I notice that these can still be purchased on the Internet, but now with the patina of age on them!

Some of the printed work she had already produced were religious texts printed on cards and bookmarks. All very good quality, some of them had gold lettering which was done by dusting wet ink with bronze powder.  After the convent was closed for good I have often wondered what happened to all the printing equipment.

Most commercial printing establishments used "hot metal" i.e. Monotype or Linotype and in the latter a "slug" or solid line of type was produced. It is interesting to note that you only have to look on your list of typefaces on the computer and some of the classic founts are retained . . . for example Perpetua, Times Roman, Century and Gill Sans to name but a few.

The points system is still kept for type sizes on the computer and the range of founts is wider than ever. Most printing these days is done by litho and computer, but in some parts of the country in working museums the craft of letterpress can still be seen. Nearest one to Findon is the Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre.

Early days at the case . . .type setting by hand in a composing stick. Letters are read upside down and back to front and with practice one can read lines of type at normal reading speed. If you dropped a line of type or case it became "pie" .

First thing was "to know your boxes", lower case was on the left, the "e" box was the largest box at the top and word spacings were thins, mids, thicks, nuts and muttons. Two nuts made up a mutton.

Printers and journalists slang also had to be learnt, a full stop was always known as a full point (period in America).

An exclamation mark was known as a "dog's c * * k" (part of a canine male's anatomy). That little gem of knowledge was NOT passed on at the convent!