Looking for the Rozziner

Dublin in the mid­-1970s. Nine years old. It was a school day, but my father had brought me to work at his newspaper, the Evening Press, where he was features and literary editor. We climbed the stairs to his small third­floor office. There were more books than wallpaper. On the floor, magazines and papers lay open as if speaking to each other. I sat in his swivel chair and spun. He worked on some articles, drew up a couple of layouts, ran his red pencil through a few words, his daily grind.

Outside, just barely visible through the window grime, ran the long grey sentence of the River Liffey.

Later in the morning we went to the library, the darkroom, the canteen. The further we went along, the more the building seemed to hum. We descended the stairs to the newsroom. A wash of noise – television chatter, telephones with their ringers set high, the hammer of typewriter keys. Copy boys scurried across the floor. Editors shouted into headsets. Photographers called out to one another. Pneumatic tubes ferried copy to the upstairs offices. Reporters jostled large rolls of paper into their Olympias, began their hunt and peck.