AMAZING – that’s how National Union of Journalists (NUJ) General Secretary Jeremy Dear described the achievements of John Ley after presenting him with the NUJ Gold Badge and honorary membership.
Ley, a member of the NUJ for 61 years, received a standing ovation from NUJ delegates in his hometown of Southport.
The NUJ’s General Secretary Jeremy Dear said:”It’s amazing for anyone to have 61 years membership of anything but having been a journalist since he was 15 covering war zones, covering a conflict in Northern Ireland and all that time doing voluntary work and helping other journalists is brilliant and it’s great we can recognise that.”
Grateful
And Ley said he was still grateful to the Southport Visitor, the paper he started out on as a 15 year old junior reporter, for launching his career.
“Frankly I will always be grateful to the Southport visitor for giving me the chance as a junior reporter at 15, it’s unheard of today,” he said.
“I feel I may have been a better journalist had I gone to university and had the chance to mature as a writer but there we are; I had to rely on experience on the ground and it stood me in very good stead.
“If I was able to turn the clock back I wouldn’t have changed anything at all, I think it is such a great job and it’s a pity today that it’s so hard to become a journalist.”
