The Birth and Death of a Small Printing Press

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I love landing on my feet, who doesn’t. I try not to jump till I am certain of the position my feet will take. I have needed to jump twice as far as my life as a printer is concerned. Once into the printing press and then 20 years later, out of it. Both jumps qualify as successful executions. Both out of choice -- meditated and planned. Both challenging decisions -- the first because I courted the challenge and the second because it stopped being one. I had jumped into an unkempt and neglected environment which I attempted to groom over a period of time into a smooth-running unit where work came to the table as did the payments. My daughter and I were our own marketing department, receptionist, secretary, shop floor manager, print and paper supervisor, coffee-maker, accountant, schedule-maker, liaison person, at times the cleaning staff and for a year and a half crèche runners on the top floor of the building when my daughter started bringing her child to work till he started pre-school. All this while we ran the Press and we would be lying if we did not admit that we enjoyed every minute of it. ...cont´d

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