Steve Finan, Memories of the Last Days of Metal Printing

Steve Finan is journalist who writes regularly about language and the misunderstandings that result every time we open our mouths. His column “Oh My Word” appears in The Courier of Dundee, Scotland, and other DC Thomson publications, where he is the heritage unit editor. He's the author of several books about football—that's proper football not the American kind—including Lifted over the Turnstiles, described as "the best book about old Scottish football grounds ever published."
Steve began as a printing apprentice in just under the last four years of hot-metal typesetting and relief letterpress printing at a newspaper in Scotland. He loved the sound, the smell, the pranks, the robust work of it all. He reminisces about his work in those days, and tells stories best known to printer’s devils and those who labored on the stone.
Steve sent along a few photos of his days in the caseroom, included at the bottom of this post.
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Notes from This Episode
- Ben Dalgin’s Advertising Standards can be read at the Internet Archive
- Jimmy Stewart “faxes” a photo using a wirephoto system in Call Northside 777. AP has a terrific article explaining this seemingly anachronistic technology.
- Woman talking on a “cell phone” in a Charlie Chaplin film
- Linotype “splash”
- My essay on type lice
- And an essay on ETAOIN SHRDLU
- Phil Abel, of Hand & Eye, now Social Enterprise Printing, printed and managed the production of my book, Six Centuries of Type & Printing; Nick Gill of Effra Press handled the typesetting



Steve’s Caseroom Photos


