Brampton Daily Times - reporter

My first positive reaction to the new Brampton Daily Times in the spring of 1965 was how the name rolled off the tongue much easier than the Brampton Times and Conservator.

Brampton, known as the Rose Capital of Canada, was a quiet place to live in the mid-1960's. The minimum security Ontario Training Centre was a mile or two down the road, but the offenders caused minimal disruption to daily life.

It felt like home and it was time to show the Globe and Mail's Robert Turnbull that his instincts about me having what it takes to be a reporter were accurate.

For the next two years, my mixed bag of duties at the Brampton Daily Times included reporter, photographer, sports editor and even one week as the women's page editor.

The long hours were welcomed and after working at four newspapers within a year, the confidence was finally there for me to try anything and everything. Covered the police beat, the courts, wrote a For Sports Sake column, did street interviews.

Even wore a mini-skirt for a photo story about dresses being proposed for men's fashions. Friends and readers pleaded with me to stick to pants. (Photo to the left: You be the judge. :-) Maybe it's the knees.)

It was strictly pants for a Young Liberal Association convention - as a card-carrying member and a reporter - in Ottawa in 1965. A memorable event that included a firm Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson handshake.

Didn't know a thing about lacrosse, which was a big draw in Brampton, but as sports editor had to cover the games. During the first or second night in the Brampton Arena press box, the local radio announcer suddenly told his audience I would be talking to him about the game after a commercial break. Bowed out of that one quickly by starting to cough a lot.

On Thursday, August 27, 1965, while sitting at the typewriter at about 6:30 p.m., fire trucks with their sirens wailing drove by the front of the newspaper. Got on the phone to the nearby Brampton fire department.

"Daily Times here, where's the fire?" I asked.

"At the Daily Times," said the dispatcher.

Hung up, sniffed around the editorial office but couldn't smell smoke. But pushing open a heavy fire door to the mailing room and press room at the back of the building revealed an inferno. Firefighters had driven to the back of the building off George Street and they quickly brought the fire under control. It took awhile for me to live that one down.

As a young, self-taught reporter, Brampton was a perfect fit. The paper was generous with bylines, always good for the ego. A lot of smaller newspapers refused to give staffers news story bylines or photo credits fearing they would lose them to larger newspapers.

With Little Stevie Wonder and Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins on my met a celebrity list, I thought it would be one-upmanship on the competing Brampton Guardian to catch some big name acts in Toronto on my nights off.

One call to Stan Obodiac, PR legend at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, cleared me for press coverage of the Beatles on August 17, 1966, and the Rolling Stones on June 29, 1966, and many other acts in between.

Snapped numerous photos during the Beatles press conference and concert and got backstage for photos of the Rolling Stones exiting a police van and relaxing during an intermission.

Both times, the same Daily Times city editor refused to publish my photos because they did not contain "local" content. What she was saying was push a local female fan into the shot of the Beatles or the Stones and it would be published. (Photo to right: Mick Jagger takes time out for a Coke and a smoke.)

To say the least, her extreme approach to "local" content was annoying, but for a 1967 Johnny Cash press conference at O'Keefe Centre and Sammy Davis Jr. and Donovan photo ops at the same venue, I got local young female fans in the photos. They got published.

Most of my Beatles and Stones photos, along with 1960's Mariposa Folk Festival concert photos, gathered dust and remained unpublished for years.

The Brampton Daily Times run from the spring of 1965 to the fall of 1967 was very productive and rewarding, but it was time to move on to a larger daily newspaper.

Doole again spoke up for me and got me a job at the Sudbury Star.

On the road again . . .

Next blog: Sudbury Daily Star - reporter