by David Lonsdale

When I wrote the first issue Colin Maclachlan and I had previously published a few newsletters but I wanted to do something with more than results and race reports.

I chose the name On the Run after I’d decided to use a photo of legs as the front page banner. I got the printer who did our organisation’s work (Bryce Francis) to print off a 1000 or so copies on the offset printer.

Interestingly in the following year an American tabloid newspaper started calling itself On the Run. We have survived.

I typed the copy on to Gestetner Master Skins on a small portable typewriter which I think we still have. Corrections were a nightmare in those days as the original had to be painted out with a pink liquid, dried and re-typed.

Running off the copies on the Gestetner Duplicator was a messy job if you needed to change the tube of ink and were not careful about handling the empty one. I got people like Brian Cattermole to write training items.

After a while the early photocopying machines came into use and I was fortunate that my employer had a gigantic Xerox 9400. It was nearly three metres long by one and a half metres wide and high.

It needed a special operator to run it. Fortunately that person was one of my employees. I was then able to cut and paste items from other publications and include photos. Copyright was a word I chose to ignore!

My growing family and increasing business responsibilities made me pass on the job after a year or so. Michele Allison took over and then produced On the Run wonderfully for many years. And now you are reading another iteration