Tales from an Old Hack

by Barbara Fisher

Tales from an Old Hack reminds us of the glory days of the local press before the internet. Reporters really did get on their bikes (or in their old cars) to go to the police station to get stories, or rush to the scene of a local incident to speak to eye-witnesses. It was the only way to get the real stories. Fake news hadn’t been invented.

The book is also a personal memoir – funny, poignant, sometimes surprising – of how Barbara, a teacher, grew up in Birmingham before she ended up being kissed by a Pitbull, attacked by the BNP, and chasing crashed planes in her second career as a full time journalist in West London. The day after she left school she and two friends went to Butlins Holiday Camp in Skegness for the summer, before training as teachers (the closest thing to a gap year then). Students weren’t in the running to be redcoats, so they were given unattractive green overalls and told they were chalet maids. It was an education. Most surprisingly in 2016 Barbara found herself a collaborator on a Sunday Times best seller, while in 2017, she was spotted eating cake and wearing a hat at a Royal Garden Party with Mr F who features in her popular weekly column, Bm@il , which is ten years old this year.

Barbara Fisher is from Birmingham but has lived in West-London for many years. A teacher in Ealing for many years, she then entered the world of journalism at the suggestion of an editor who liked the weekly school’s page, which she wrote for the Uxbridge Gazette . A mother of one, she spent 20 years working for the paper, including spells as chief reporter and deputy news editor. She is now freelance but still writes a weekly column for Trinity Mirror . Barbara was shortlisted for the Edexcel Outstanding Educational Journalism Award in 2002, and was made an honorary fellow of Brunel University in 2005 for her community reporting. She has also written for the TES, My Weekly and the Guardian Family.

291 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 28, 2019

Reviews

[Ernie Apostolos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never write reviews but I'll make this one exception for my Brummie mate whose companionship and sense of fun highlighted my late adolescent and early adult years. We were close neighbours and fellow students at West Midlands College of Education. The book was a fascinating read and reminded me of the joy and commitment that Barbara brings to everything she does. Her love of drama, acting, literature, teaching and learning, and latterly reporting, publishing and presenting were there in plain site long before she ever left Birmingham and the West Midlands. Her parents were just as she described. The nicest people you could ever meet and I often think of them dearly; and also the oft featured Maggie and Mike Fisher whom I feel privileged to have known. I'm so pleased for Barbara's success; it has arisen from her own hard work and positive attitude. This book is uplifting, informative and engaging and most of all human.

[Margaret Whellams]

This is a well written, personal, often funny and truly fascinating account of the many people and places encountered by a local reporter in West London. I enjoyed reading it a lot. Sad that many local papers are now doomed. There is still a place for the really local news.

[Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great autobiographical review . was delighted at her
surprise , when a student , to be interviewing alan sillitoe .
moving from teaching to journalism she stresses the
importance of engaging with the community