When Hugh McKinlay was compositor of the Clydebank Press, a young reporter went to Clydebank High to report on the annual Burns supper.

The reporter returned and Hugh nearly fell over when he read the copy.

He asked the reporter, “What’s this?” He had crossed out the words “Celtic Grace” on the copy.

The reporter was incredulous that his story had been changed and said, “I won a gold medal at Heriot-Watt”, to which Hugh replied: “I don’t care if you won a gold medal at the Olympics, it’s the Selkirk Grace.”

He met that reporter a few years ago and they can still laugh about it.

Today, Hugh is 97, living in his own home in Blairardie, looking back on decades in the newspaper trade.

His was an era that saw the introduction of computers replacing hot metal, when they were the size of large cabinets filling part of a room.

Hugh went to work for publisher William Collins aged 16, before joining the army in 1939 and serving in the Royal Signals, a time he’s both proud of but cautious about revealing too much even 70 years on.

Then he returned and continued his time at Collins where he learned the linotype keyboard – one of the main methods to set type lasting from the late 19th century until Hugh took on the first printers from the digital era with very different QWERTY keyboards in 1976, as shown in the above photo.

After some years in London on local newspapers, Hugh returned to Glasgow in 1951 where he started on the Glasgow Herald and then 20 years at the original Scottish Daily Express.

For two decades, he worked the 6.30pm to 2am night shift, four days a week at £100 a week. When the Express closed, Hugh went to work for the Clydebank Press, the predecessor of the Post.

“I loved working on newspapers,” said Hugh. “Twenty years on the night shift from 6.30pm to 2am – it was a great shift because I could play golf all day. You lived your life backwards. I was here during the day and in the summer the wife and I could go to Helensburgh during the day. It’s something you got used to – it was a very well-paid job.”

Hugh’s son, Hugh Jnr, went on to work at sister title Helensburgh Advertiser and he forged a distinguished newspaper career for himself, at the Campbeltown Courier and then Stirling Observer.

And then when the Express closed, Hugh Jnr helped his dad get the job at the Clydebank Press, part of the chain of papers with the Drumchapel News, Govan Press and Renfrew Press, then owned by the Cossar family.

Though he retired in 1985, Hugh still looks back at his newspaper days fondly. A great-grandfather of nine, including Paul McMullan, currently on loan from Celtic to Dunfermline, it’s a point of teasing for Hugh as a lifetime season ticket holder at Ibrox.

Hugh was married for 52 years to May before she passed away in 2005, two years after Hugh Jnr died.

Still, the photos of his family around his home, and the yellowing copies of the Clydebank Press and Drumchapel News, are sources of pride.

“I still meet some of my old buddies from the Express,” he added. “These were great papers to work for.”