Fordyce Maxwell: 'Irish journalists were the most likely not to appear at breakfast, or at all'

Published on Saturday 7 March 2009 18:41

I'VE been up at first light recently. No need to, but you've either got it or you haven't, and if your internal alarm clock is permanently set for an early start it is not easy to change.

Work forces many to be unwilling early starters, collapsing into a long lie every day off or weekend they get the chance, so those of us who find it easy to spring – I'll rephrase that, get – out of bed with the dawn should be thankful.

My only concern in the past week has been that neighbours getting ready for work might pause at the sight of someone digging over what, to the untrained eye from a distance, looks like a row of fresh graves.

No worries, folks, just forking over vegetable beds, enjoying the lonely crispness of the mornings, and wondering how much longer I can restrain myself from planting the first early potatoes.

Also time to ponder how popular being an early starter has made me with those not so lucky. Such as telling a sister, in the traditional way by opening her door and shouting, that she was going to miss the school bus. A brief hand gesture usually suggested she might not care.

Or singing along a college hall corridor, to and from a shower and shave, to a ragged chorus of obscenities and groans from behind closed doors and an occasional "Oh my God, he's coming back". My inability to remember more than the first two lines of any given song probably didn't help.

When I started work as a journalist I was introduced to press trips to far-flung places – I'd led a sheltered life – such as Dublin, Berlin and Paris, at home to exotica such as a week at the Smithfield show in London.

To dispel popular myth, not all journalists drink heavily. But those who do, or did before cirrhosis and delirium tremens got them, more than compensate for those who don't when it comes to press trip organisers trying to get the morning show on the road.

Without prejudice, Irish journalists were the most likely not to appear at breakfast, or at all, with Scots and Welsh close contenders. Their problem was not entirely drink, it had something to do with a laid-back Irish approach to a working timetable that made Val Doonican seem hyperactive.

Whatever the cause, I soon learned that some senior journalists didn't appreciate a cheerful holler and wake-up tattoo on their hotel room door. I thought I was doing them a favour. They thought otherwise and said so. Succinctly.

Various sayings extol the virtue of early rising. "Get the name of a good riser and you can sleep all day", is a cynical one. I prefer the farming adage that "An oor's work afore breakfast is worth twa after denner" or the more general "Well begun is half done" and have always tried to stick to them.

That has given me some magical spring and summer dawns when work was pleasure, in winter the satisfaction of being halfway through a morning's work before first light, in journalism hardly ever being past the deadline. What, never? Well, hardly ever.

Even now, when I don't need to, the urge to be up and doing is strong. But for the sake of all concerned I try not to sing.