"When I started out as a newspaper reporter in the south of England, Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was telling everyone they had never had it so good.

He was correct in my case because landing a job with the Surrey Herald in Chertsey, after National Service in the RAF, was a dream come true.

I'd wanted to be a reporter right from my grammar school days when an English master often marked my essays: "This is too much like journalism." He meant it as a criticism, but I took it as a compliment.

Now I've written a book about my 50 years as a reporter on weekly and evening newspapers in Surrey and Hampshire.

Called don't quote me, it takes a light-hearted look at my career, which began with stories being hammered out on typewriters and ended with them being crafted on computers.

In my search for stories I found myself in a race with former Olympic 5,000 metre runner Chris Chataway, got a scoop with John Lennon's psychedelic Rolls-Royce, and almost touched noses with pianist Russ Conway through a slatted wooden fence.

I was chased from a travellers' caravan camp by a rather large man brandishing a shotgun, and found myself standing in a field with two pumas and a leopard who looked as though they wanted to eat me for breakfast.

Civic lunches could usually be stuffed-shirt affairs, but not the one I attended where a dustman who'd had a couple of brandies too many embraced the Queen at the top table.

Working as a reporter was everything I hoped it would be, and more. It was always interesting, often exciting, and was generally great fun."

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Site updated: 2017