After 21 years at the Independent, it will be a day of mixed emotions for me as I look forward to more travel experiences with my husband Glen and spending extra time with our family, which includes 11 delightful grandchildren ranging in age from seven years to five months.

I have always loved my job right from the very beginning when I received a call – out of the blue – from the then editor Ron McLean asking me if I would be interested in a part-time job.

At the time I was a full-time mother of four, picking up casual work here and there and also working as a juniors coach for Gunnedah Swimming Club.

In this role, I also wrote publicity for the club which is apparently what brought me to the attention of the editor, who was looking for someone to assist him with material from other publicity officers.

I was interviewed by the  manager Brian Gregson and Ron McLean explained my role and took a day to show me how he wanted the material “subbed” ready for the typist.

This was back in 1993, when few people owned a computer, much less a typewriter, so most of the publicity came in hand-written. My job was to take to it with a pen and “turn it into newspaper style”.

Draws and results for cricket, tennis, darts, bowls, junior league, netball, squash, soccer, volleyball and a myriad of other sports crossed my desk, along with School’s In notes and stories from the CWA, Red Cross, church events, birthday celebrations and anniversaries, births and weddings.

Rocky, as our dedicated editor was affectionately known, was a great teacher and within months he gave me a number of assignments to do, which included writing stories about Gunnedah Community Services.

I had always loved reading and writing and my favourite subject at school was English. I will always be grateful to the Sisters of Mercy for nurturing that skill with extended studies in English, sometimes even after school hours. 

Ron McLean’s patience and guidance were invaluable as he went over my stories with a green pen and pointed out the correct way to write for newspapers.

“Always use the KISS method,” he said.

“Keep it simple so that everyone in the community can read and understand a story – space is of the essence, so superfluous words should be avoided.”

At this stage I was only working one day a week, between the two publication days.

Like myself, Ron McLean had a passion for history and recording people’s stories and it was when he decided to start a series on older local residents before their stories were lost that I really came into my own. This was a series I really enjoyed and I used my own time to go out and interview many wonderful people who shared their life and treasured family photographs –  between us we recorded almost 120 profiles in the years 1995 to 1998.

With Rocky editing every story and introducing me to more complicated tasks, I decided to undertake some correspondence study through the Australian College of Journalism.

Although this course gave me an official certificate, I believe the guidance of Ron McLean was far superior to any university degree.

While my favourite role has always been reporting community events, I managed to become a jack of all trades, writing sport, general news, interviewing politicians and bishops, taking baby photos, writing obituaries and attending fires, floods and accidents.

I have always been fascinated with the Aboriginal culture and the wonderful legacy left by the McDonagh family in the notes written into a book The Red Chief by Ion Idriess. As a result, I have reported on NAIDOC Week and other cultural activities with great interest.

Technology has changed the face of the newspaper industry since I started in 1993. Back then, I was given a green pen and a writing pad and I wrote my stories in longhand.

The Namoi Valley Independent was laid out on pages with the editor measuring the printed articles and photographs making them fit around advertisements. 

The stories were printed on art press, cut and pasted by hand and impressions made on aluminium plates before printing. Production day at the Independent was always a flurry of activity with last-minute stories being written even as the press was running to print the centre pages.

Every staff member was involved in collating the newspapers as they came off the press. The press room was freezing cold in winter and “perspiration” hot in summer, with the rapidly churning machinery shedding its own heat. 

Today, the pages are made up on a computer and the photographs are all digital images put through an automatic colour factory on each computer. 

A number of different editors have come and gone at the Namoi Valley Independent and when Rock went to Tasmania in 1998, I was asked to work two days a week, which a few years later became a full-time position as editorial staff came and went and I gave up swimming coaching.

In 2001, the Longmuir family’s 96-year association with the newspaper ended when the company was sold to a new partnership of former local journalist, Ken McKenzie, and long-serving employees Keith Millerd, Terry Maroney, Rodney Coe and Peter Koch. 

Ten years later, the Namoi Valley Independent was sold to Fairfax Media and although internally the structure has changed, the dedicated staff continue to work hard at keeping the town informed of local issues and events. 

In the past two decades, I have seen a huge turnover of staff, made many firm friends and thoroughly enjoyed my contact with the community.

I will always be grateful to Brian Gregson and Ron McLean for giving me the opportunity to train as a journalist and to the owners for their support, especially Keith Millerd who not only kept everyone’s feet on the ground but was also a great fill-in editor.

I love my home town with a passion and this position gave me the opportunity to help promote and report on many issues and record history as it happens.

The financial benefit was also appreciated as it opened my horizons to the world and allowed us the opportunity to travel.

In retirement, I plan to keep travelling and writing, and complete the many other projects I have started, including a family history. I was privileged to help Ron McLean write Gunnedah’s Sesquicentenary book, The Way We Were, and I gained a great deal of knowledge along the way.

To everyone in the community, I say thank you for your support – I did occasionally make an error in some stories but it was my policy to quickly apologise and blame a “brain explosion”. Today I just say “my brain is full” and I can’t absorb any more information.

I will miss the wonderful staff at the Independent. It is  a great place to work when you have genuine people beside you every day and  with a mixture of old heads and fresh young faces with new ideas, it seems to work.              

WE farewell Marie Hobson with much sadness and quite a few laughs over memories of the past 21 years.

Marie joined the NVI in 1993, when then editor Ron (Rocky) McLean was looking for an extra staff member.

“It was no-contest, Marie was far and away, the one – she was streets ahead of anyone else,” Rocky said. “I’ve always felt that this was one of the best decisions I ever made at the NVI.”

She has been that most loved of employees - loyal, hard-working, always positive and perennially cheerful.

Marie has proven the ultimate “people person”, taking a genuine interest in the people she met and the stories they had to tell. 

As well as her commitment to telling people’s stories accurately and with understanding, she has also always had a deep sense of history, which was reflected in two ways. First of all, Marie and Rocky started Senior Citizen profiles in the late 1990s. 

“This was right up Marie’s alley – she always had compassion for the ‘good old battlers’ in the community and she told their life stories with great skill and warmth, at the same time giving readers a glimpse of what life was like in other days,” Rocky said.

“Her writing brought great pleasure to so many people.”

The other example of Marie’s affinity with the community was the sesquicentenary book, The Way We Were.

“We made a commitment to put together the book when we realised it had to be us,” Rocky said.

“Her efforts, on top of what was required in the normal production of two papers a week, were inspiring, reflecting her great loyalty to me.”

The Independent staff wish Marie the best on her new chapter.