It is only when you start to look back at a career in journalism that you realise just how much has changed.
In the 1980s and 1990s you could hardly move for free newspapers starting up – some households would have three or four delivered each week. Most have now long gone.
And, of course, the biggest change of all has been the rapid and massive rise in importance of digital media. So many people these days consume their news through websites and social media.
Back in the 1980s, print was still king but there were many assignments a young journalist would be sent out to that would never happen these days.
During my time at my first newspaper in Yorkshire reaching the age of 90 was still considered a milestone to be celebrated publicly in the local newspaper. Word would reach the news editor that someone locally had reached his or her 90th birthday – and a reporter and photographer would be despatched to their home to secure an interview and photograph.
The person reaching 90 was often female but on those occasions that I met a male who had reached his 90th birthday there was usually an engaging social ritual to go through.
After the interview, covering where he grew up, his school days, working and family life and retirement, the old fella would suddenly pause, as if deep in thought. Then came the magic words, spoken in a broad Yorkshire accent: “Would you like a drop of whisky, lad, to help me celebrate?”
Our photographer would be driving, so I was free to imbibe without risk of driving over the limit.
Heartened by my positive response, my 90-year-old new best friend would walk over to a cabinet in the corner, bend down gingerly to open it and then rummage around for some time before emerging triumphant with a very dusty and clearly rarely-opened bottle of whisky. If I was lucky the bottle would turn out to be a best single-malt Scotch.
After glasses – or sometimes just mugs – were fetched, my Yorkshire interviewee would liberally splash whisky into it. We are not talking strict bar measures here – we are talking half and two-thirds-full glasses.
The next ten minutes or so would be spent by me happily sipping and savouring the Scotch and trying to ignore the impatient glances of the photographer, who was stuck with water or orange juice at best and who was eager to get on to his next assignment.
Eventually it was time to leave the house and, after firm handshakes and declining ‘another drop’, I would be driven back to the office.
There, in a convivial and warm glow, I would attempt to write up the life story of one of those many true gentlemen of Yorkshire.