THE man who’s been making sure the Dorset Echo goes to press has waved off his final edition.

A true ‘newspaper man’ Derek Newman, 63, yesterday stepped down after a mammoth 40-year stint with the Echo.

Processing page templates, Derek oversaw the production of the 70-plus titles printed at the Echo print centre on a weekly basis for distribution throughout the country.

He said: “I have been in the print industry one way or another since I was 13. I originally became interested when I was at Broadmayne School where they had a publishing club. It was either being a printer or working for the local bakery and my mother wasn’t allowing that.”

After leaving school Derek learnt his trade during a five-year apprenticeship with former Weymouth printers Jeffery Brothers, alongside block release weeks at Southampton College.

After a stint at Dorchester publishers Henry Ling, Derek began his career at the Dorset Echo on January 4, 1977 as a Linotype operator in the composition room.

He said: “It used to be a very, very labour intensive occupation with a lot of heavy machinery. We would sit at big key board with a pot of molten lead behind us. We used to heat steak and kidney pies on it and I haven’t tasted a pie like it since.”

During his time at the Echo, Derek has served in a number of different roles and seen first-hand the evolution of the printing press into the Millennium from scalpels and paper cuttings to modern computer methods.

For him, the industry changed drastically in 1999 when the offices relocated to the Granby Industrial Estate from St Thomas Street and he became a computer-to-plate supervisor.

He said: “I remember the day we moved clearly as it was the day Jill Dando was shot. It came on the news as we were coming across in the car. My job changed a lot back then; we went from cutting out bits of paper to images being sent to screen.”

Looking back at a successful career, Derek says he has made a lot of friends at the Echo but is ready to take on new adventures. Having lived in Weymouth his entire life, he and his wife Maureen will be heading to Rhayader in the Elan Valley of Wales to join their daughter.

“We have been going there on holidays for years and it was always our intention to retire there. We thought we would go have a new adventure, my wife and I.”

As colleagues bid as fond farewell, regional print manager Steve Ainsworth said: “Businesses rarely see such commitment and application from employees over such a long career. Derek Newman is one such person who exemplifies the true tradition of a newspaper man.

“Coming from the halcyon days of typesetting right through to ‘modern’ production methods, he proved himself an invaluable member of the Dorset Echo team and latterly to the Weymouth Print Centre being instrumental in the workflow and output of new digital page technology. It is an often overused comment that he will be sorely missed but in this case, that statement would be true.”