STEPHEN Lewis has had many jobs – petrol pump attendant, civil servant and teacher among them. But none lasted quite as long as his time as a journalist at The Press.
The veteran reporter is retiring after three decades at our York newspaper.
Steve, who turns 65 later this month, thinks he started at the paper back in 1996.
“It’s so long ago, I can’t quite remember the date!” he says as he breaks off from finishing editing The Press’s daily letters’ page to look back at his years at our Walmgate HQ.
Twenty-eight years is a good innings for anyone’s career and certainly for our scribe from Herefordshire who began his journalism career hopping across various weekly newspaper titles in the South West before having a four-year-break where he taught English in China (and where he met his wife Lily).
He’d been working on a weekly newspaper in Gloucestershire, and interviewed someone who had just come back from doing VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) in Africa. “I thought it just sounded like an amazing experience,” he said. “I applied to VSO the next week, expecting them to send me to Africa. But they sent to me to China as an English teacher instead!”
Back in the UK, he took up his journalism career again – first on the Bath Chronicle, and then in York.
During his years at The Press he has written thousands of stories – but which ones stand out?
“I joined a surgeon at York Hospital who was operating on a patient with bowel cancer. He held up a coil of her bowel and said: ‘that’s the cancer’. It was so matter of fact – all the while this woman’s life was hanging in the balance. I found out later that the patient did really well.”
Then there was the day he joined the circus. “A knife thrower told me to stand against a wall and started throwing knives at me in quick succession. I was standing there petrified. Afterwards, he told me when he was doing this the week before he hit someone!”
In 2010 we had one of the worst winters in living memory and Steve was part of a convoy of Press staff who headed out to reach cut-off communities in the North York Moors, including the tiny hamlet of Beck Hole.
A trip to deliver supplies to cut-off villagers trip in the snow in January 2010
“We got a 4 by 4 and loaded it up with supplies and drove up towards the North York Moors. The village was completely cut off and we had to walk down to the villagers with our supplies.” They were welcomed like heroes.
For the bulk of Steve’s time at The Press, he worked as a feature writer, crafting regular local history features (for years he was the face of our ‘Yesterday Once More’ slot) but also penning more in-depth articles and longer reads on all aspects of life in the York community, from the serious to the downright silly.
Our photo archive bears witness to many of Steve’s exploits over the years, including a photo of him in a tux in 2008 to go with an article on having a James Bond makeover, and one of our usually serious reporter staring into the eyes of York theatre legend Berwick Kaler ahead of a one-on-one workshop on how to be a panto dame. Proving he was as good a sport (‘Dame for a laugh’ was the headline) as he was a writer, Steve duly posed for a photo dressed as a panto dame.
Like many people starting out in journalism, Steve was motivated to make a difference – and that was a drive that never left him. During his career he’s written about everything, from the danger of social drugs like ecstasy and the challenges of tackling homelessness, to local politics, science and the cost of living crisis.
He recalls a particular success from early in his time in York: the Press campaign in the late 1990s which raised £100,000 for the ‘Cancer Haven’ – a new cancer care centre – at York Hospital.
“We raised that money in about eight months – the people of York really got behind it.”
Often his stories shone a light on perceived injustices or hardships facing people in York.
“About 15 years ago, I did a lot of stories with families whose children had autism and were in their teens, about to become adults. There simply wasn’t then – and there still isn’t – enough provision for young people with autism who reach adulthood”.
More recently, Steve has reported in depth about changes in support for rough sleepers in York, specifically about the city council’s decision to end its £95,000-a-year contract with the Salvation Army to deliver rough sleeping services in the city.
Steve went out with the Salvation Army’s Charlie Malarkey on his regular 5am round to check on the city’s rough sleepers. “I went out with him a couple of times and the rapport he had with the people who had been sleeping on the street was just amazing. To my real shock, last summer the council decided to end the contract. I still think that is an awful decision.”
Steve adds: “As a journalist you want to make a difference but also make people aware of what is happening.”
Steve, a graduate in Zoology from Manchester University, has a life-long love of science and nature, and has exercised this passion in many stories for The Press.
One memorable occasion was when he met David Attenborough at Askham Bog in York. The veteran naturalist spoke out against a development threat to the bog, which dates back 15,000 years.
“Askham Bog is an amazingly biodiverse site with a unique history and there was a plan for a new housing development on nearby Moor Lane,” explains Steve. “There was a fear that the development would drain land and dry out Askham Bog. David Attenborough came up here to speak out against it. He said allowing development to go ahead there would be a desecration on a par with building next to York Minster.”
Steve has reported on many innovations by scientists at the University of York too – including the York team working on nuclear fusion, a researcher developing facial modelling systems designed to help surgeons rebuild children’s faces after injury, and a team studying pollution in the River Ouse. What impressed him perhaps most of all was the work of the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP), where researchers have been developing astonishing techniques to harness the power of plants for everything from making new medicines to sucking pollution out of the ground.
Steve has also been making a difference outside of journalism: he was a governor at York Hospital when it first became a foundation trust, and also a board member of York Civic Trust where he helped produce four education packs on York history for primary school children. He also co-wrote a book, Streets of York, which raised £70,000 for local charities.
On retiring Steve hopes to travel more, do some voluntary work, and “get my garden under control”.
Looking back at his long career, he has witnessed many changes in the newspaper industry; today, we have fewer staff and tell stories in new ways, not least through social media.
But he hopes – and believes – journalists and The Press will continue for many years.
“Journalism will survive in some form. It is going through a process of change but it will find a way to keep going because it matters so much to local communities.
“It’s really important you have professional journalism and not just social media.
“There is no code of practice or conduct for social media.
“We need reliable sources of news provided under a code of conduct and to a set of standards.”
Ultimately, being a local journalist has been a privilege, he adds.
“And being a features writer was the best role for me. News is all about the sensational, the unusual, the extremes, but it doesn’t really paint a picture of what everyday life in a community is like.
“I liked looking at more of the ordinary things going on, from villagers keeping their local Sunday church service going to communities rallying around to try to keep their pub open. Being a feature writer gave me the chance to do that. It’s been wonderful.”
