A Profile

ALEC MILLER, COPY PREPARER

THE SHORT, wiry, alert-looking figure of Alec Miller, a manuscript thrust under one arm, is a familiar sight in the General Office and Composing Room. Perhaps not so much is seen of him now that he has, at last, found a place of his own: a cheerful, gaily painted room on the first floor, tucked away at next to the lift in the tower of the Yarn Mill. It is bright with the coloured wrappers of books and magazines and an imposing display of massive works of reference stretch weightily along one shelf. The room is small but light and airy; with everything in impeccable order.

Alec Miller, Copy Preparer at Jarrold Printing

The predominant impression it evokes is one of intellectual precision and concentration, of a mental fastidiousness that amounts, one might say, to perfectionism. For Alec is nothing if he is not a perfectionist whether at work or in play. His job has trained him to miss very little and a hatred of the ‘that’ll do’ mentality is probably his chief characteristic. In some men this sometimes makes for a rather arid temperament; in Alec Miller it is tempered by the enthusiasm which makes him such a good conversationalist.

Printer’s ink is in his blood and since the time he was apprenticed as a compositor at Jarrolds in 1919 he has never ceased to love printing and all that goes with it.

But printing is only one side of his life. He is also well known as a referee in soccer and for some years has acted as a Hospital Relays Commentator on Norwich City FC games and recently for cricket as well.

As in sport so in his other interests, one does not exclude the other. He enjoys listening to traditional jazz equally with classical music; he is as much at home in ballroom dancing as in Scottish reels.

For Alec, or to give him his full title, Alexander Ernest Miller, is a Scot by extraction. A ‘Miller’, one of the Macfarlane clan, the family comes from Paisley. Apparently they were a weaving family; at the turn of the century Alec’s mother was a forewoman engaged in silk weaving in this very same building – the Yarn Mill.

The Scots have traditionally laid great emphasis on formal education. Alec’s love of learning is not therefore surprising. It is symptomatic that even after he had completed his technical education he continued to study at night in such subjects as French and German until he was thirty.

This extract comes from a Jarrold Magazine of the 1960s.