10 RELOCATION RELOCATION

So the process of the relocating and working around builders began. Because of being cramped and no office space catered for we as a whole company had to work for a few months all packed into what was to be the main printing/finishing room. Over that time it was noticeable that my legs (I have Muscular Dystrophy) were deteriorating and on a few occasions tripped and gashed my legs open. Over the next couple of years or so my father died from a massive stroke and then 6 months later my mum died from a pulmonary embolism – a blood clot to the lung. This was rather severe as initially my mum had only a broken ankle and back then we really didn’t know what an embolism was. We were affected in a big way because of the embolism and it seemed every week that someone had died from an embolism in all the medical dramas from then on. I stopped watching medical dramas because it was too painful for me to view and now in 2009, almost 13 years on, I still don’t watch many medical dramas where as before I would record the ones that we were to miss.

We all eventually became settled in our new building and made the best use of the space available even though once the office staff etc. had moved, we were still in cramped conditions. My position within the company grew and I was keen to learn and excel in all aspects within the company.

Over the next months and years I learnt:-

• Plate making, negative work, the process before plate making.
• Photograph work to negative.
• Plate making for external printers.
• Guillotine work from large sheet to printing size A6, A5, A4, A3, A2 A1and A0 and of course RA and SRA sheet sizes.
  
• Guillotine work for the finished trim size ie. Letterhead, Invoice, Compliment slips, Business cards and labels, stickers and tags etc.
• Bookbinding from novice to intermediate.
• Gold letter foil blocking.
• Typesetting and gold foil setting.

Finishing work, including:-

• Guillotining jobs to the finished size.
• Numbering on single sheet or multiple NCR sets.
• Folding.
• Wire stapling including the setting up of the finishing machines.
• Padding with PVA glue etc.
• NCR sets for invoices with 3, 4, and 5 sets.
• Multiple page pagination to gain the correct layout for any number of pages.

As time went by I practised all of the individual processes to the best standards I could achieve. There was a delay in the knowledge I was able to digest because we had another trainee apprentice who I took care in to learn and print with the secrets of my trade and the learning I had been able to do.

The qualified apprentice was to leave for a higher paid multiple colour work working mainly in the production of cd printing and cd packaging printing and several other things including T - shirts, cups, drinking glasses, book covers but mainly specialising in cd’s and cd covers. This company has recently early in this year 2009 closed down due to people downloading music tracks already converted to a digital form as a MP3 music track and the in-house printing that was done for the cd covers and the inserts with songs and lyrics etc.

Now in 2009 it is a struggle for printing companies to survive because a lot of companies now use paperless stationery sent by e-mail via the internet. If this is not the case, then a bill, statement, compliment slip etc. are printed in-house using a computer and home jobbing printer with no initial cash layout needed as is the case in having external supplies printed and delivered.