Giving Column 8 a new lease of life

Back in the 90s I wrote five and a half years of weekly columns (apart from the holiday period each year) about all manner of subjects under the title Column 8. I'm now gradually adding these to this blog as I get them typed up again.

It was great having a free hand like that - the sort of benefit few writers probably have just to let their hair down and go for it. Sometimes having such a wide range is inhibiting, strangely, but in general something got written each week that was worth reading, and, in a few cases, worth forgetting.

The column began when the previous columnist announced, rather out of the blue, that he was quitting. I rang up and - amazingly - got the job on the strength of a couple of hastily-written pieces that were eventually among the first published columns. It ended even more abruptly when I received a letter from the editor (a change from sending him one, I suppose) telling me that due to 'restructuring' (that wonderfully abstract word) my services were no longer required.

I had one more column to write and in it told the readers that I'd been summarily dismissed - and amazingly, got away with it. I don't know the real reason for my dismissal, though I suspect it might have had something to do with the column I wrote (one of my occasional religion-focused ones) in which I said that in spite of their claims, the Mormons were not part of the wider Christian church.

It may have had nothing to do with that. It may have been that the editor felt the columns were getting tired. (Sometimes they were.) It may have been that I was employed by one editor and fired by his replacement. It may have been that they preferred to save $50 a week (or was it $30?) and use the space for advertising.

Certainly they did restructure the paper, quite some time later. Columns were no longer included - at one point there had been several writers going on about their favourite subject week after week (like fishing). Gradually similar columns have been re-introduced over the years, and we now have policemen/women writing, or politicians. (The fishing column has moved to the daily newspaper.) The paper has survived, which is extraordinary in itself, and it's actually one of the best freebies I've come across.

I have plans to post some of the old columns on this blog, randomly, in keeping with both this blog's title, and the nature of the original column. Column 8 wasn't my choice of a name, by the way. It was decided by the editor: all it meant was that the column began in the eighth column of the newspaper, which was conveniently placed inside the first page. It actually occupied columns 8 and 9, in part, but we won't quibble about that. Suffice to say it that it was a prime spot in which to blog...I mean write.