Discover the ink in Neil Haverson’s blood, on this 50-year ride through the Norfolk and Suffolk newspaper industry. Neil has witnessed it all in the ever-changing regional media world – from flongs, hot metal and office cricket, to full colour printing, digital editions and the web.

For much of his career, Neil worked in Eastern Counties Newspapers, latterly Archant’s commercial arm, but his talent as a humorous writer was discovered on the in-house Prospect magazine. This led to wry sporting columns and the famous ‘Fortress H’ dispatches in the Eastern Daily Press.

Ink in my Blood, my half century in newspapers features the ‘greatest hits’ from Neil’s Norwich Mercury, Eastern Daily Press and Let’s Talk magazine columns and his reflections on half a century of ink in his blood.

Ink in my Blood is published by Paul Dickson, paperback £11, ISBN 978-0-9956187-4-9 and is currently stocked at Jarrold Norwich, Jarrold Cromer, The Holt Bookshop, Waterstones Norwich, The Book Hive Norwich, City Bookshop Norwich and Revelation Christian Bookshop Norwich. The book can be purchased online at Allthingsnorfolk.com and Amazon and is also available as an e-book.

Commenting on the ink in his blood, Neil Haverson said: “As I wrote about my years in print I realised I simply couldn’t imagine spending my working life in any other profession. The industry has an atmosphere all of its own. It’s hard to put a finger on it but it wraps itself around you. Trawling through my memory to compile this look back at my career has reawakened the experience of the ‘hold the front page’ era.”

“I consider myself extremely fortunate to have worked in the industry when I did. I saw newspapers move from the centuries-old hot metal production to the state of the art electronic process today. The future does not look bright for the printed word, but for me, and I am sure many others, sitting in the armchair with my newspaper is simply the only way to digest the news.”

Neil Haverson began his career in the mid 1960s as an advertising clerk on the Lynn News & Advertiser, before moving to Norwich and Eastern Counties Newspapers (now Archant) at the dawn of the 1970s.

Neil continued in advertising, but by the end of the1980s, his skills as a writer were recognised . He was offered a sporting column in the Norwich Mercury and after three years graduated to a weekly column in the Eastern Daily Press. It soon was a regular fixture, as Neil’s amusing look at family life, ‘Fortress H’, became a must-read.

In 2002 Neil made the full transfer from advertising to editorial, when he became chief writer for Let’s Talk, Archant’s new magazine for the mature reader. He was promoted to editor in 2009, a role he successfully fulfilled, until he retired at the end of 2016.