Life & Times of "Brother Juniper"
by
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As the autobiography tells, many have been the encounters and experiences confronted by our Brother Juniper as he has twisted and turned in his race through life to reach the fulfillment he has been seeking.
His near half century in newspaper journalism and as a “stringer” for Fleet Street included in-depth coverage of a horrific boyhood to manhood serial poisoner and killer and a host of other crimes; and in another direction years spent covering the uneasy transformation of a market borough of 26,000, where he resided, into one of Britain’s post war new towns with a target of 80,000 but now considerably in excess of that.
In his war service on
And back again after the war to his busy newspaper career - then extended to dining out features and weekend car road test jaunts. Not forgetting as well his extra mural activities as a director of a local football pool company raising cash for amateur football clubs, and in complete contrast as press and information officer in turn to two Westminster MPs and an MEP!
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About the Book
For its author the real reason for this full to the brim autobiography stretches back through the decades to one specially remembered day in his young teenage years when he was persuaded to appear in a bible class presentation of a St Francis of
In no way, of course, could that careless remark be described as insulting to all present at the performance. Maybe though to the character itself perhaps, but most certainly not to its portrayer who at that time merely happened to be a vulnerable, sensitive teenager.
Immediately casting aside the experience for ever from his memory would perhaps have been the sensible course. Who knows what life will bring at that age anyway? Instead, it has constantly remained lurking at the back of his memory throughout a long working life full of twists and turns, sad times, good times, modest achievements and yes, three marriages as well for extra measure. Still asking himself though whether or not throughout it all he has unknowingly been a type-cast of Brother Juniper.
Now, at 84, and with the autobiography published, he is waiting for the verdict of its readers. Clearly they will have much to assess about the author's many-sided life in doing so!
About the Author
Son of a London chimney sweep but with no wish to follow in his working role , I had begun launching a written school magazine in an exercise book illustrated with the odd snap or two taken with my old Kodak box camera and developed in the scullery of my mother’ corner shop . A year later when I was reaching school leaving age at 14 , headmaster Edward Popple, happened to remember this when talking to the school-leavers of that year about their prospects.
“Ah yes, Young, I happen to know the editor of the weekly newspaper quite well. I will have a chat with him and see if he can find a place for you on the editorial staff”
Three weeks later, I had been interviewed by the managing director and editor of both newspapers the Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted Gazettes and signed the necessary papers etc to become an apprenticed reporter for five years rising by annual increments of five shillings a week!
All of which only goes to show what I was quickly to discover as the years became decades and I continued my ties with journalism for nearly half a century: “It is not always what you know but who you know!”