From express reporter to editor
IFW was fun, with a capital F. We worked and played hard, especially down the pub on a Thursday evening after going to press. I had a long commute even then, from one end of the Piccadilly Line to the other.
The paper was based in Cockfosters and I lived then in Osterley. A two hour home to office journey, but it was worth it, working on a publication with several different teams over ten years, covering all the transport modes: ocean, air, rail and road.
With IFW’s greatest editor, Paul Berril 
Playing the fool
My speciality was the express parcels sector, plus railfreight (including the under construction Channel Tunnel) and ports. There was still no email or internet but desktop publishing was coming into the office. I started with an old-fashioned typewriter, then an electric version and a fax machine which, when it arrived, reminded me of the ape wielding a bone as a weapon in 2001, A Space Odyssey. Thus spake Zarathustra in IFW. Next came a primitive PC and finally a networked AppleMac.
You could pick up the phone, interview someone, type up the story using a word processor software and send it over to the layout sub in the same office who would make up a page and print it out for proofreading, all in a few hours. A miracle of modern communications at the time, and unbelievable to today’s generation with their smart phones with Google, Amazon, WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and all the other social media apps.
I traveled a fair bit in those heady days of IFW, including trips to the Louisville and Memphis mega hubs of UPS and FedEx. I even got the chance to be a delivery man for UPS in the Big Apple (I still have the cap). I also picked up a couple of awards from the Society of All Cargo Correspondents, including journalist of the year.
By Lenin’s tomb 
Putting on the Ritz 
IFW company car
Parcel pioneer 
IFW award
The next stage was becoming editor, a post I held for six years. I was responsible for a team of eight people, many of whom I am still in contact with today. I also met my wife-to-be, Yvonne, while at IFW, and we still enjoy working together today.
After ten years at IFW, it was time to move on to a trade daily, if not the greatest trade daily, Lloyd’s List.
