Norfolk Nips

I was the producer and editor of the monthly news letter of the Norwich and Norfolk branch of the Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA), from 1988 to 1996. It was four to six sides of A4 paper in size and had a print run of 6,000 when I took over, which I increased to 9,000 at the time I stopped. In those days there was no internet and the computer I used to produce it came from the Neolithic Age. The computer just ran WordPerfect and not much else; there certainly was no colour screen. To get it to function I had to insert a five and a quarter inch floppy disc into drive A, start the thing up with a crank shaft and then, only then, insert a second five and a quarter inch disc into drive B, and then enter some strange hieroglyphics which made the computer give out some strange whirring and clicking noises, then hey presto! it was ready for use. Sometimes it did not and I spent hours swearing at the bloody thing until the Shining Computer Knight (husband) got home from work to make things better again.

I used to manually enter the text of all the articles that were for publication. These would be written by other CAMRA members, or unknown people posting them in, or landlords, or copies (nicked) from other publications. This could take a long time and had to be edited several times, reworded, deleted and amended; and there had to be more articles than was needed as fail safes in case anything went wrong. When all this was done, the WordPerfect files had to be converted to MSDos.

Then I used to cycle down Sprowston Road and Silver Road to Taveners Square and hand the precious disc over to Rosemary at PTPS Typesetters and sit chatting with her a while about how the publication would look, the font and sizes needed, can you do it in several sizes and can we have some decorative wiggly lines and graphics in case we need them please and it all had to be planned out like this. About two days later she would ring and I would go and pick up some huge scrolls of typesetting on some very stiff and shiny white paper which were carefully stashed into the panniers of my bicycle and I then cycled up Silver Road and Sprowston Road back home.

That evening we (husband and and I) used to sit with scissors, two sheets of A3 and two sheets of A4 and two tubes of Pritt Stick. We cut the typesetting into bite sized chunks and arranged them on the paper into some logical order and then with the glue and a ruler stuck the articles into a logical sense. It took a lot of measuring and sliding and some swearing. Also we used to nick graphics and other things from other publications, old typesetting and anything else we could get our hands on. This could take several days and many arguments.

And there was also the advertising. Nips was supposed to be self funding. Of course it was not; the typesetters and printers had to be paid for and this was not a small sum. We were indemnified by the profits of the annual Norwich Beer Festival, but I had to show willing by selling adverts to local pubs and other associated businesses, and I had to mostly design and produce the advertising myself. I was quite good at this, and was good at communicating with relevant others. I got leads from other CAMRA members who might have been for example beer suppliers or brewery reps who passed on messages from landlords. There were also other businesses who liked the idea of publicising in a niche publication such as Jazz'N'Blues Records which was run out of someone's front room in a house in Taverham by a seventy year old ex-policeman. The adverts had to be fitted in too. One landlord from Brundall wanted his published upside down; this I did not do, as I thought it was too stupid, so he got angry with me when he saw the finished product. The landlord of The Red Herring was not happy with his either, so we didn't charge him. Roger Cawdron of the Black Horse, Norwich was very happy with the slogan I thought up, “A Thoroughbred Amongst Pubs”; I actually nicked this from a Lloyds Bank advert on the telly.

When all the pasting was done I would wrap the finished treasure in cardboard, stuff it in my panniers and cycle to Magpie Printers on Magpie Road and choose the colour of the paper, which changed on every bi-monthly print run. After a few days I would get a phone call that it was ready and arrange for a fellow CAMRA member with a car to pick up the print which was transferred to the back bar of the White Lion, Oak Street by permission of Jim and June Kidney, the landlords. Jungle drums were started so that the distributors could start their work, and the posting started also to the postal list.

Circulation of the copies was fun. I had my list of pubs and other places, for example Cinema City, the Library and Tourist Information. I was welcomed and often offered a quick half. I sometimes bravely went to new places to test the water. Sometimes they wanted to be included on the list and sometimes they could get very angry, and chuck me out. I don't know why, regarding that CAMRA was always trying to promote businesses in a positive way and it was free advertising for them. Circulating Nips gave me a reason to go cycling and Norfolk is a great, flat place to cycle; I met some very interesting people on my travels.

Another perk of doing Nips was that I became known to the brewers. At Christmas a huge Adnams Brewery dray used to gingerly inch up narrow Anthony Drive to deliver to me a pin of Tally Ho, along with a tap, soft and hard spiles, and chocks. I used to have great fun in my garage, chocking, tapping and hard spiling it ready for Christmas, and even greater fun drinking it. I was invited by Brian Cowie and Bob Wales to their Year Beer events which started in 1991 after their purchase of the Tolly Cobbold Brewery from Brent Walker. Once a year they would brew a special beer and give out numbered bottles at a party at the Cliff Brewery, Ipswich. I got some numbered bottles of the Year Beer, Cobnut, but I did drink them rather than keep them as a artifact. Well, wouldn't you? I also appeared on Anglia TVs Cross Question when my submitted question was chosen for broadcast about the subject of Tolly Cobbold Brewery being re-opened after Brent Walker tried to close it. This airing pleased Brian Cowie as it was free advertising for him.

Nips started in 1982, so in 1992 we held a special ten year party at the White Lion. By accident I had earlier met Ray Ashworth, managing director of Woodforde's Brewery, at the 1992 Bystanders Beer Festival in Thorpe Road, and asked him to brew for me a reincarnation of Norfolk Nips (8%), a barley wine sold in little bottles, after which the newsletter was named. He said he had the original recipe and could do it in time for the party I was arranging. This was great!! I asked June Kidney to put on a lavish spread, and invited as many people as I could think of, including the past Nips editors Jason Tilyard and Paul Moorhouse. I arranged the production of a special half pint etched commemorative glass, and an anniversary cake. The party at the White Lion was a great success, even though, sadly the Norfolk Nips beer had not cleared in time, and was a little hazy. And so was I when I walked home.

Later on the branch bought me a new computer, via Phillip Tolley who went down to Tottenham Court Road, in London to get it. I also got PageMaker and CorelDraw software. As I did not have to use PTPS Typesetters any more, production became much easier and I could incorporate photographs into the copy. It took me a while to teach myself PageMaker and I never did get the hang of CorelDraw.

In 1996 I finally got a worthwhile job, so it was time to hand over Nips to the fresh editorship of Adrian Hennessey.  I hope that you got as much fun out of it as I did Adrian.