Stop Press! A Compositor’s Life on Fleet Street (HD)

This is a talk given by Mick Clayton and Catherine Dixon held in person and online via Zoom at the St Bride Library on 21 October 2021.

Join us for an intimate evening with Mick Clayton in conversation with Catherine Dixon where he will share memories of working as a newspaper compositor on the presses of Fleet Street during its hey day.

From amusing anecdotes on his banging out ceremony to the controversial move of the presses from Fleet Street to Wapping in the 1980s, this will be a fascinating insight into this lost trade and how Mick is keeping the traditions alive in the Print Workshop at the St Bride Library today.

Mick Clayton is a freelance compositor who manages the St Bride Print Workshop. He teaches short courses in Letterpress and organises talks and tours of the Foundation as well as their annual wayzgoose. He worked on Fleet Street during its heyday as a hot metal compositor and then page makeup on early computer systems for Mirror Group Newspapers.

Catherine Dixon is a typography tutor on the Graphic Communication Design programme at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. She has been involved with events at St Bride for 20 years and run much loved typographic tours along Fleet Street with Phil Baines, with whom she also wrote the book Signs: lettering in the environment (2003). She contributes regularly to international design journals and conferences and, when given the opportunity, will happily typeset a book. From 2011 to 2012, she was a Visiting Professor at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

This talk is part of our ‘Celebrating 125 Years of St Bride Library’ lecture series, which has kindly been sponsored by:

• Adobe (www.adobe.com/)
• Commercial Type (commercialtype.com/)
• Eye Magazine (www.eyemagazine.com/)
• Eric de Bellaigue
• Google (www.google.com)
• Jerry Wright
• Just Another Foundry (justanotherfoundry.com/)
• Klim Type Foundry (klim.co.nz/)
• Lexon GB, Creative & Innovative Print (lexongroup.com/)
• Mayor of London (payitforward.london.gov.uk/fund)
• Medioto – Graphics & Animation (medioto.com/)
• Peter Longland
• R-Typography (www.r-typography.com/)
• Trevor Fenwick
• Type By (www.typeby.com/)
• Usborne Publishing (usborne.com)

and The Wynkyn de Worde Charitable Trust who have sponsored students and recent graduates to attend this lecture.

To find out more about the St Bride Library, please visit:

www.sbf.org.uk