Where it all started

I came across this photo in the book "Cardiff - Those Were The Days", a collection of photographs compiled by Brian Lee. Brian Lee worked for the Western Mail and Echo, in Cardiff, which had connections to the Tudor Printing Co, the previous occupiers of the building which housed Qualitex Printing. The photograph, I would think, was taken between 1968-1970 judging from the hairstyles and the Cornerstone frames. Although a taken a little while before I started some of the faces circled were still there. (From left to right: Glyn Mayor, Dennis Mayor, Bill Cuthbert (the Father of the Chapel), Ken Jones, Mike Manley and Maurice Nolan (the Comp Room Overseer). For the first three years of my apprenticeship I carried out my work at the frame in front of Ken Jones, who then occupied the frame in the very bottom left, just out of shot. In my time, behind Ken, was another tall bench/frame where the leads for line-spacing were cut. In the top right of the picture you can see the Monotype Keyboard room. When phototypesetting was introduced in the mid-seventies, this room was partitioned and annexed to the very back of the comp room, with a couple of keyboards moving upstairs into a room in the loft - where I took up residency in the last two years of my time.