Change to AGM

THE Association’s AGM 2022 will now be held on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19 and not as previously advised.

The venue has also changed to: St BRIDE FOUNDATION, 14 BRIDE LANE, FLEET STREET, LONDON EC4Y 8EQ.

Meet at 11am for an 11.30am start. Speakers and guests to be confirmed.

The Scottish annual meeting 2022 is unchanged on Tuesday, October 25 at The Studio, 67 Hope Street, Glasgow G2 6AE (it’s where the 2021 SAM was held). Again 11am for 11.30 start.

More details will be posted when we have them, and will also appear in your autumn Mirror Pensioner.
Graphic: Vecteezy.com

Hope you had a happy Jubilee, everyone!

Exclusive to AMP members

COMING soon to a doormat near you – a sparkling new issue of Mirror Pensioner, the Association’s newsletter.

Read the latest about funding for our MGN Pension Scheme, changes to our Trustee Board, Gerald Mowbray’s in-depth look at the latest Reach annual report, and much more.

Features include members’ book-publishing exploits; the winner of last autumn’s £50 caption competition; chairman Deborah Thomas’s new wheels; Alan Newson’s wartime working; latest news about Hilary Bonner’s new play; all about The Pensions Regulator. And, sadly, obituaries for greatly missed colleagues.

The newsletters should be clattering through letterboxes around mid-May.

Calling all Lifers!

MAY 12 2022: It’s time for another reunion for staffers, casuals, freelances, friends and family connected to The Sporting Life. For more details from the Life’s social secretary, Paul Duffett – Hopper to one and all – please click through to Members’ Noticeboard.

Finally… it’s curtain up for Bonner

HILARY BONNER, former Daily Mirror showbiz editor, has enjoyed huge success with a string of best-selling crime novels, but now, after more than fifteen years and three false starts, including two cancellations because of COVID, her first play, ‘Dead Lies’, begins a national tour this month.

She said: “It’s been a long and winding road bringing ‘Dead Lies’ to the stage. It’s a contemporary English thriller, a murder mystery laced with political intrigue, sex, and scandal, set against the backdrop of current-day Westminster. My original inspiration was the Jeremy Thorpe affair, which I worked on as a young reporter in the 1970s.

“It had never occurred to me that I might be able to write a play until I was approached and commissioned back in the early noughties. So I wrote ‘Dead Lies’ – but the path to the premiere has not been smooth…

For more about ‘Dead Lies’, including the play’s touring schedule, please click through to Members’ Noticeboard

The Queen and I

“LEGENDARY” is an overused word these days but it describes erstwhile Daily Record political commentator and columnist TOM BROWN perfectly. The AMP’s former chairman, and current life vice-president, has shared a very personal retrospective on his 70 years in the job…

The Queen and I started our jobs on the same day in February, 1952…

To read more please click through to All Our Yesterdays.

(Image: Hamilton Advertiser)

 

 

 

 

 

Spring is here!

IF you’ve got post-Christmas blues, and New Year’s Eve already seems a long time ago – and you have nothing much to look forward to – this should cheer you up!

How about this cheeky little blue tit? How can you not feel a surge of happiness with this early indicator of Spring around the corner?

I was pleased the other sunny morning to see the bird activity in my Sevenoaks garden had increased hugely – there were all manner of tits flitting about, feeding on the mixed seeds and the sunflower hearts (their favourite breakfast, lunch and dinner), and I realised a few of them were early doors scouting out possible nesting sites.

The robin, dunnock, wren, blackbird, collared dove, wood pigeon, jackdaw and inevitable magpies were also making their presence felt, and a couple of starlings flew down for a bath. I won’t mention the ring-necked parakeets, who never stay but merely investigate, they’re just bandits!

So if you’re feeling a bit fed up, just remember, this blue tit is showing you that Spring is on its way. Ed.                                                                                        Pic: David Atkins, Pexels

 

 

 

 

 

Happier New Year

 

 

Let’s hope for a happier and healthier New Year.

We would like to wish all our members and their families a very merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy 2022

Mirror Pensioner autumn 2021

THE LATEST issue of Mirror Pensioner has gone down very well with our members. Did you get yours?

If not, please let us know using the Contact Us page and we’ll send you another one.

Your autumn Mirror Pensioner has full reports and pix from our two 30th anniversary meetings; news about our pension fund; an examination of the Covenant; a welcome to our latest trustee director; a thank you to a pensions hero – plus other fabulous features.

And all the regulars are there: Chairman’s Chat; Gerald’s View; Quentin Woodley’s column; membership and finance update. And, sadly, the inevitable obituaries where we remember the colleagues and friends we have lost.

PLEASE NOTE: Entries to our £50 caption competition have now closed. The winner has been notified.