Even ‘God’ made mistakes

Oh hell, what have I gotten myself into? I was simply following one of God's Commandments.

Sure enough, within 10 minutes the solicitor, a sophisticated looking middle aged bloke in a dark pinstripe suit, came pounding up the flight of stairs to the newsroom.

I ushered him into the sub editors' cubicle where he confronted Rod, a World War 2 Navy veteran dubbed "The Admiral" by the back-room printers. Rod was also a keen surf lifesaver and a pretty unflappable bloke, with an open neck shirt exposing part of his tanned, hairy chest.

He pushed himself back in his chair and lit a cigarette as he listened to the tirade from the defence counsel. The upshot was: "You'd better kill this story or we'll sue".

I saw the signs of defeat in The Admiral's eyes. You could shoot back at the Japanese from a Naval patrol boat but you couldn't fight the law, and in this case, the lawyer was right. Time to run up the white flag.

"Ok, I'm sorry this has happened. We should have been in court".

Needless to say, the page 3 lead was reduced to a small single column report which wouldn't win any Walkley Awards or pique our readers interest.

Rod was ready to reprimand me until I explained the circumstances.

"Don't worry, I'll have a word to the editor about all this tomorrow. We don't want anything like this to happen again, it could have been a bloody disaster".

But in this case, God the Editor listened. Maybe he even learned from my experience. Better still, Mrs God obviously had even more influence than The Admiral and this cub reporter.

"My wife tells me she doesn't think you should have to attend every CWA and Red Cross meeting. She thinks you're cut out for bigger things and maybe that's true, so we're asking them to appoint their own news correspondents".

Wow! Every cloud has a silver lining, but I'd miss those scones and lamingtons.

And I completed the usual four-year cadetship in two years.