Some of my MEN colleagues thought it was premature senility, others recklessness, and some reckoned it was bolder than when I risked imprisonment for refusing to reveal the source of a front-page exclusive. The MEN’s straight-talking sports editor Pete Spencer- not renowned for sensitivity- but generous enough to give his autograph to anyone who asks for it - was genuinely bothered.

"I'm worried about you pal, “ said Pete in one evening phone call. “I think you’re losing it. Change your mind, it’s not too late!” Then he called round at the house and tried again. He WAS concerned for my mental health and still rings for the occasional condition check!

It was a wobbly last week in the buzzing newsroom of the MEN, where I had worked for 25 years. I had been chuffed that Salford University wanted me to go as a lecturer in journalism. They recognised that you could only really teach journalism if you had extensive hands-on experience of the trade. I had previously been invited as guest lecturer by two other universities. The feedback from the students at Leeds and Preston, all eager to learn from my career ups and downs, planted the seed.

Front page exclusive

I’d never considered leaving journalism. I love the cut and thrust of the newsroom of a daily paper, the challenge of completing stories in time for deadlines, the pleasure of seeing a story work out against the odds, or a front page exclusive with a by-line. There were the people who became trusted contacts, always willing to help when officialdom tried to block information coming out. There’s no greater tribute to a journalist’s integrity than the trust of a source and that’s something I shall be drumming into my students.

I’ll always remember going to the Falkland Islands after the war and giving an MoD minder the slip one early morning and coming up with an exclusive on how the sleepy capital of Port Stanley was fighting its second war in the space of a year- this time against its first ever crime wave, imported by workers shipped out to build a new airport.

There was being arrested at gunpoint by the police and slapped in handcuffs, so near and yet so far away from Myra Hindley, on her sensational first trip to Saddleworth Moor. I was just doing a job I loved, but Mr Plod didn’t see it that way.

Next week read about Steve Panter's emotional last week at the Manchester Evening News... Tweet