The sense of frustration I experienced in York was the inevitable outcome of conflicting perceptions.

The city itself is a many faceted jewel of great architectural interest, with its Viking and Roman heritage sites, its medieval streets, world famous cathedral, art gallery and splendid railway museum. The weather seemed better, milder and sunnier than the North-east coast. Attractive and comfortable pubs, the university, cinema and social clubs provided an environment in which it was easier to meet people and possibly make new friends. Despite all these compensations I found that the men and women whose company I enjoyed most in York were, like myself, outsiders living and working in the city.

My understanding of the move to York was that I would be responsible for the development of coverage of the new university being established there. When I arrived in the newsroom I found that I was treated as if I was a new junior.

There were two graduate trainees already in place, Peter Waymark, who had joined the Westminster Press at the same time as I had, and was doing a lot of court work, and Stewart Russell, who had just arrived from Cambridge and who already considered the new university his patch. The Chief Reporter seemed to be famous for his indecision in facing the daily difficulty of allocating staff to potential stories and the coverage of events in the diary. The Editor seemed a remote figure and had a somewhat severe reputation. He presided from an old-fashioned office in the historic front of the paper’s premises on Coney Street, the City’s main shopping thoroughfare, a pedestrian area, and was said to have used the traineeship conditions to prevent one of the younger indentured reporters moving to a better career opportunity on another paper.

Faced with this unpromising framework for career development, and given my growing determination to find my next job in Ireland, I decided to accept the Yorkshire Evening Press situation as I found it and to try to make the best of what the city had to offer.

Both Peter and Stewart turned out to be excellent company. Like me, Peter was essentially a serious fellow with upper middle-class aspirations. We had many laughs on expeditions in search of possible partners, joining a young professionals’ organisation called the Coffee Pot Club, in which we found ourselves with the most boring company either of us had ever imagined.

Stewart Russell had married a girlfriend from his native Spalding when he graduated. His wife, Janet, was an attractive, leggy, secretary with a mass of piled up hair and big eyes. When Stewart had a fair bit to drink as the gang gathered of an evening, most frequently in the Bootham Bar, he would often accuse Peter and me of being more interested in Janet than himself. Could this unfair allegation have been part of a wider insecurity? I was surprised, for example, that Stewart seemed quite upset when rather drunkenly he came a poor second, having challenged me to a late night sprint down the close leading from the bar to his apartment. Peter and I were often invited visitors to that apartment, enjoying Janet’s cooking and being introduced to the latest cultural trends by Stewart. There we heard Barbara Streisand singing “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” long before she was common currency in Britain and we discussed films in terms of the director’s signature, a concept Stewart had taken from “Les Cahiers du Cinema”. Going to the cinema became not just entertainment but an exercise in critical appreciation.

My applications for jobs in Ireland were made on the basis of advertisements appearing in the Irish Times which Florence sent regularly.

I started applying for posts other than in journalism because I was far from sure that I could tolerate a career involving so much waiting around and such little opportunity to do anything about the economic and social problems behind so much of what I had to report as news. In addition, I was disappointed that so many local authority and professional people seemed to hold journalists in depressingly low esteem. In York, particularly, I was conscious of being patronised or insulted by civic officials, including the Chief Constable.

To my surprise, one of the jobs for which I was called for interview was for a post of administrative officer in the Institute of Public Administration in Dublin. The Institute was looking for a candidate who could do some information work but would be primarily responsible for extending the Institute’s membership, particularly outside Dublin.

As the Institute was closely linked to the Irish civil service I was very sceptical as to the likelihood of my recruitment and, when called for interview, announced to the Chief Reporter that for personal reasons I would have to go to Dublin for a few days to see my mother.

The Institute of Public Administration, the IPA, was establishing itself on Lansdowne Road, near the level crossing adjoining the Lansdowne Road station on the East coast railway line. The international rugby ground on the opposite seaward-side of the level crossing was what gave the name of the road such a high recognition factor. My interview was in the Director’s office on the top floor of a semi-detached redbrick house with granite steps up to the hall door, a house very similar to my old kindergarten. A detached and large grey house next door was being adapted to house a School of Public Administration and the IPA library.

When I arrived for the interview in my best suit, I had to wait my turn in a first-floor room which served as half-library and half-front office. There was a pleasant young woman in a sleeveless green angora wool sweater, her hair pulled round to the side in a stylish French roll, presiding over the office behind a cluttered desk.

At least, that is how I remember my first meeting with Anne, who was to become my beloved wife.

She remembered me asking questions about the Institute, including, to her surprise, an inquiry as to whether or not the staff belonged to a trade union. In the Westminster Press, I had just been elected treasurer of the York Branch of the National Union of Journalists.

As an organisation seeking to be the vanguard of progressive management for the Irish public service, the IPA invested a lot of time and effort in recruitment. In addition to the conventional selection board, I was put through a session with a consultant psychologist specialising in ability and personality assessment.

I never imagined that in one afternoon, on a flying visit to Dublin, I would meet my future wife and complete a successful job application in which the selection board and the psychologist would become valuable contacts at later stages of my career.

The Selection Board Chairman was Dr. Tom Barrington, Director of the Institute, a pioneer of many innovations in Irish management and government. He was a charming man of great intelligence and academic insight who perhaps became best known for his writing on the history and topography of the County of Kerry. The psychologist was Professor John McKenna, whose wide-ranging interests in education and mental health led him to seek some political involvement, with a view to promoting the modernisation of these sectors.

Shortly after my return to York following the interview visit to Dublin, I was thrilled to get a job offer from the IPA. The salary offered was little or no advance on what I was already earning but I would have fewer living expenses as I proposed returning home to Dalkey, taking up residence again in Ard Mhuire Park with Florence and John.

Whether I could do the job or not, I would be relaunched in Ireland, escaping the unsatisfactory situation in which I found myself in York. I wondered how best to get myself out of the Westminster Press as quickly as possible without facing contractual problems relating to my traineeship.

The route I chose to take worked but, I feel, was probably unnecessarily heavy-handed and unfair to the Westminster Press hierarchy, particularly to Philip Duncum, the Headquarters’ personnel officer, who I should at least have had the courtesy to telephone with the news that I was accepting a post in Ireland.

Perhaps it was on Florence’s suggestion, or perhaps because I knew it would put pressure on the local editor to release me, I went to see one of York’s leading solicitors and asked him to act on my behalf in seeking the termination of my Westminster Press traineeship. The solicitor’s letter clearly arrived like a bolt from the blue in the editor’s office and, while I had to face recriminations in the editor’s holy of holies that I had not simply had the courage and decency to ask to be released, it was clear that no obstacles would be placed in my way and I could leave as quickly as I liked.

And so I headed back to Dublin and a completely new job. What baggage did I bring with me as an investment in this future? I had the smart red special-edition Austin Mini I had bought second-hand in South Shields, trading in the Morris Minor I had bought as my first car in Seaton Sluice.

I had learnt the basic rules of news coverage – who, what, where, when – and how to report accurately and clearly. Because Irish local government had many similarities with English local government, I hoped that my experience of reporting on local authority committees would prove useful in my work for the IPA.

Last, but not least, I felt certain that the exposure I had had to heavy drinking sessions and late-night parties would prove invaluable on my return to Dublin.

Read more: 1965 – Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, Films and Fianna Fáil