Former editor, photographer, compositor and journalist, Bernie Budden, notched up a milestone when he celebrated his 90th birthday on Tuesday.

Bernie, and his wife of 67 years Edna, were joined by family and friends in Muswellbrook to toast the achievement and to look back over an extraordinary career.

Once the secret was out current staff at The Chronicle did a little arm-twisting in the hope Bernie would share some of those moments with us.

“Let me think about it; let me think about it,” he said shaking his head during one of his regular trips down to the office in Market Lane to chew the fat.

“Why don’t you find someone interesting,” he said, “the readers don’t want to hear about me.”

The arm-twisting paid off and a few days before the 90th I was welcomed into a warm lounge room on a cold night to annoy Bernie Budden.

Bernie’s career with The Muswellbrook Chronicle, and the Hunter Valley News when it started in 1972, spanned nearly half a century before he officially retired in 1990.

The War in the Pacific was raging when this young farmer’s son from Wybong had a yearning to be a newspaper man.

During a remarkable career Bernie covered it all; natural disasters; meetings of not one, but three, councils in the days before amalgamation; the births, deaths and marriages of two generations; accidents; and, of course, his beloved local sport, especially rugby league.

“I played for the Muswellbrook Rams when their football jerseys were blue and white, not blue and yellow,” he said.

Bernie said he started on the Intertype typesetting machine at the old office in Bridge Street when he was 16.

“I didn’t know much about the machine but I was told it had 2000 working pieces and they had two people working two Intertypes, another bloke up on the bench and a few machinists doing the commercial printing,” he said.

Naturally, with so many working parts it stood to reason something would pack it in one day, and it did, said Bernie.

“Another fella and I had to load everything onto a small plane at Scone and fly to Narrabri so The Chronicle could be laid out up there.

“I hadn’t flown before and it was my first flight and it was his first flight, too,” Bernie said.

“I used to cover the council meetings and they seemed to me to be a good source of stories; there was a lot of news there and you used to write down everything they said, but I don’t think they say much now.

“Muswellbrook Council meetings ran for a couple of hours, and Denman and Merriwa meetings went all morning and sometimes after lunch,” he said.

Bernie Budden was also a keen photographer, capturing the happy, and harrowing, images of the district and building his own dark room at his home.

“When I was doing photos sometimes it could be 3 o’clock in the morning before I finished.

“If there was a bad accident the police would ring me up, because they didn’t have a photographer, and they’d also call me out to photograph people who’d committed suicide for their records.

“They’d say, ‘Bernie, we’d like a print the next day if possible,’ so that’s what I did,” Bernie said sadly.

I ask the Muswellbrook newspaper veteran if he ever got into strife over a story.

“Well, I didn’t have too much trouble, but there was this one woman who got very upset once.

“I’d reported money had been stolen from a female taxi driver in town and she came roaring into the office and pushed past the girls at the front counter saying, ‘Where’s the editor?

“Turned out she was the only female taxi driver in Muswellbrook and she didn’t want anyone to know the money had been taken,” Bernie said.

Bernie’s talents weren’t restricted to The Muswellbrook Chronicle.

He worked as a freelancer or ‘stringer’ for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Newcastle Herald and the Northern Daily Leader.  He also worked with the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

“You know, I had a photograph on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and I’ve got a cutting somewhere down in the garage.

"I didn’t keep many paper clippings of my work, but I’ve got heaps of negatives, I know that because I used to roll them up, write a description of what they were and put a rubber band around the roll,” he said.

Sitting quietly on the lounge next to her husband, Edna, said very little; just listened.

I asked Edna Budden what her recollections were of being married to Bernie in his role as journalist, editor and photographer.

“Oh, he worked long hours, more than eight hours and sometimes it seemed like he worked forever,” Edna said quietly.

But there were times when Bernie Budden wasn’t working.

In fact, one of the moments of which he was especially proud came after his retirement.

It was August 31, 2000 when he carried the Olympic torch at 75 years of age.

I glanced across to the corner of the living room and, sure enough, there it was a long, lean white cylinder mounted and sitting on the cabinet, as shiny 15 years on as it was the day it was handed to him.

“Go and get it, bring it over,” he said, “it won’t cost you anything.”

“Carried by Bernie Budden 31-8-2000 No.32” it said on a little plaque.

“I didn’t run through Muswellbrook; I got the stretch between Blandford and Murrurundi and it was so nice, there were horse studs and it was green and beautiful.

“They gave me a uniform and away I went and I remember a woman from Denman gave me the torch and I think I gave it to a woman from Sydney,” Bernie said.

I try to finish with a pithy quote and ask Bernie if there’s anything he’d like to add.

“What, that I’m getting old," he said?

I guess that means we’re done.