Mike Amos is a much-honoured English regional journalist. He's the sole reason I gained a start in journalism, whether journalism thinks that was a good or bad thing, and I still think of him decades later as my boss. Bill Taylor salutes Mike's 45 years of service ...
I remember when my dad turned 80, he looked at me in some bewilderment and said: “I don’t feel any different inside. . . in my mind I haven’t grown old.”
He had, of course. As do we all, if we’re lucky. I’m 62 and Colin, if he’s not there already, is closing in on it (there - editor). I don’t know about him but I think of myself as being about 27.
And I still clearly remember the first time I met Mike Amos properly and that would be when I’d just turned 19. It was 1967. (I say “properly” because, although we were at Bishop Auckland Grammar School at the same time, he was a year ahead of me so I didn’t really know him.)
About a year into my first newspaper job, at the Middlesbrough-based Evening Gazette, I had been detached to the Bishop Auckland (by happy coincidence, my home town) branch office. Mike was on the rival Northern Despatch – soon to be renamed the Evening Despatch.
I’d been sent to cover the magistrates' court and, as I walked there along Cockton Hill Road, I recognised him ahead of me. I caught up and introduced myself and was immediately enfolded – there’s no other word for it – into this larger-than-life, expansive and unaffectedly friendly personality, a man who didn’t know the meaning of the word “standoffish”. We were friends from that moment.
I didn’t realise at the time that I was in the presence of a genuine force-of-nature, a polymath with an often daunting energy and one or two idiosyncracies, too. He kept a large toy fire engine in the office, for instance, and still occasionally mentions the day I hid it and sent him into a panic.
Mike turns 64 next month and the energy, far from being abated, seems to have increased exponentially over the years.
Monday marked 45 years in journalism for him, all with the same company, though he long since moved from the Despatch to its flagship sister paper, the Northern Echo.
Those were the halcyon days of local journalism. The Gazette had a five-man office in Bishop. I’m not sure how many people worked in the office that the Echo, Despatch and weekly Auckland Chronicle shared. But it was enough for monumental drinking bouts and a camaraderie that went hand-in-glove with rivalry – I remember, too, Mike phoning me early one Sunday morning to tip me off to a murder up in Weardale because he didn’t drive and needed a lift there.
He still doesn’t drive. But he covers the North East of England like a wry, witty and beautifully literate blanket, producing five separate and distinct columns a week for the Northern Echo.
That’s entirely different to writing one column five times a week (which I’ve done). Mike writes two general interest columns, each with its own approach: one on regional sport; one on regional religion; and another in which he reviews restaurants around the region. (I knew I should never have trusted a nouveau Canadien but just done it myself; it's six colums a week - editor)
That, though, doesn’t really begin to describe the waterfall of language that he pours onto the page. The wit, the erudition, the sometimes appalling puns, the joy of life and love of where he lives.
Colin and I argued amicably earlier this year when I was visiting him in France over what Mike might have achieved had he moved to the national press.
Colin put forward the thought that the man is touched with genius. I can’t disagree with that but my belief is that it was born and nurtured in the North East, which Mike knows like the back of his hand, and might gutter in a larger sphere where his knowledge wasn’t as encyclopaedic.
It’s academic, though. He never had any intention of moving.
His first column, I recall, was for the Despatch. It was called the Words of Amos (from, I believe, a biblical quotation). The rest of us called it the Words that Shame Us (or the Turds of Wurmos surely ... editor). Mike laughed as hard as anyone and carried on. He was and is indominatable.
Over the years, he’s picked up a number of regional journalism awards and, in 2006, an MBE for services to journalism in the North East.
He responded that he was “absolutely chuffed to bits” and would be “inviting the Queen for a pint of Strongarm and a Taylor’s pie”. You could imagine him doing it, too. And the Queen, perhaps, thinking it over. She couldn't wish for better company.
I left the Echo and England in 1973. I haven’t seen Mike in about a quarter of a century. But we exchange intermittent emails and I even get the occasional mention in one of his columns. I still feel myself enfolded in that unselfish friendship that he proffered so readily on Cockton Hill Road.
I sent him my congratulations on his 45th anniversary in a business that has changed so much, largely for the worse. I asked when we might expect a book from him.
He replied: “I’ll be 65 in October 2011, will certainly pack up full-time work but may still do two or three columns. I don’t think a book’s a goer – you get used to writing for the following day.”
I see his point but it’s a great shame. It would be a wonderful read.
But don’t take my word for this, go to http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/features/columnists/ Scroll down a little to Mike Amos and pick any one from the list: Gadfly, John North, Backtrack, At Your Service or Eating Owt.
Immerse yourself in the swimming pool of words that flow from his prolific pen (I still can’t picture him using a computer). I’ve learned a great deal from Mike over the years. Even now, I’m still picking up tips.
It has been, and remains, a privilege.
Subscribe as a Friend for a £10 a year
Or subscribe to Friendship for life: £50
Recent Comments