Last week I interviewed an 89-year old World War II veteran, Eric Bullen. We sat outside in the Monday afternoon sun at his Mangere Bridge home in Auckland while he talked about his involvement as an engineer, or sapper, with the 7th Field Company in Egypt and later, Italy.
The idea of interviewing a war veteran came from a customer who frequents the cafe where I work part-time. This man is an ex-editor of the New Zealand Listener and an excellent journalist. After encouraging me to write about ANZAC day, I phoned several RSAs and was given Eric's name by the Onehunga club. Several hours later I emailed the article to Snow, the ex-editor.
I sat in front of my Packard-Bell digesting phrases such as, "If I were employing you I would toss this straight back to you and get you to re-check and re-write the whole thing." Although I had trouble breathing at first, I was grateful for such necessary correction in my quest to be a journalist. Afterwards I went down the road to my friends' house, the boys' flat which has a landline, did some re-checking, and then sent a corrected copy to Snow. Still, there were some faults but Snow was very encouraging this time: "Good work and well done for following up the detail of my suggestions so well."
I sent the article into The Aucklander, but unfortunately their ANZAC edition had already been planned out. After phoning the Manukau Courier there is a possibility that Eric's story will be published on Friday. Watch this space.
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Hello everybody. My name is Natalie Tims and I want to be a journalist. I work five days a week in a cafe on Symonds St and I spend my afternoons interviewing people and writing stories. So far I have had two stories published on the internet, and several in a national church magazine. This blog is about my progress in achieving my dream: to serve New Zealand by being an excellent newspaper journalist.
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