We have all been there at some time in our life … generally on a school excursion.

At least that was when I first saw how a newspaper was put together.

Yet it was far from an earth-shattering experience.

A little wooden building in a back street of the country town I grew up in had timber floorboards where the newspaper was composed and the accounts were paid.

The flat-bed printing press was in another area … with a dirt floor.

Each week a four-page broadsheet would be run off on it … by hand.

And the cost? Threepence or three cents in today’s currency.

Still, the town was lucky to have a paper … the local rag, as most grown-ups called it.

And they would joke that you could drop it … and still have time to read everything in it before it hit the ground.

Today I still have to pinch myself that I am working in such a stimulating industry.

One in which you have incredible responsibilities and pressures placed on you each day.

Yet, at the end of it, when the paper comes off the press, you can spare a moment and enjoy what this amazing team of people put out – day after day, week after week, year after year.

For what reason?

So people can be informed. So people can be inspired. So people can form their own opinions. So they can better be able to make the decisions that will lead them along the pathways of life.

Our role is to reflect what is going on in the community and – where Property Week is concerned – in the market place.

It’s like creating a work of art. You get in there, use lots of thought, effort and emotion to create something that is different to each person who picks it up.

As well as a comprehensive list of residential properties for sale there is news on what the property market is doing, what attracts people to different areas and what the property values are, a look at businesses that are available and an informative commercial section.

We also include items on what people in property are doing – from helping charities to starting new business ventures.

At the end of the week you are drained … drained of energy, drained of emotion. Yet you can only afford a few minutes of reflection.

Time for a cup of coffee and maybe a piece of cake, then it’s back to work to get ready for the next edition.

Another way I describe it is like a fisherman who puts his nets out early in the week then sorts through his catch to see what is in the bag. It’s then a matter of arranging the fish at his stall the best possible way so as to attract people to buy his harvest.

It’s the same with Property Week. We trawl through the properties that are on the market and present them in the best way to appeal to our wide range of readers.

And, after all, you can always use the newspaper for fish and chip wrapping when you’ve finished reading it ...