Howard Jones has become the ultimate “insider” since joining The Border Mail 32 years ago, from Wales. In retirement, he will further immerse himself in his adopted home.

HOWARD Jones gives his customary chuckle as he recalls the day he interviewed Pauline Hanson at the Henty Field Days.

The notorious politician’s minders decided it would be prudent to set up a photo opportunity with a rural background so they propped her in front of a cow.

It proved an ill-fated PR move because the creature mooed forlornly throughout the interview Howard captured on his tape recorder.

When Howard played back the tape he couldn’t hear a lot of what Ms Hanson was saying with her drowned out by the cow.

Someone in the office remarked to him it didn’t really matter because it was all a load of bulls--- anyway.

These are the stock-in-trade anecdotes of a journalist who has covered just about every round known to newspapers.

From politicians to pensioners, parish priests to prisoners of war, courts to council and health to highways, the veteran reporter has chronicled the happenings of this community for three decades.

There is one notable exception — sport.

And that may indeed have come as some relief both to him and to those he worked with during his nearly 32 years at The Border Mail.

He has been known to exclaim to sporty types, in his thick Welsh brogue, that hardly anyone really cares for “bloody football” and the Murray Marathon paddling race should feature on the back page.

But when Howard (who, by the way, dislikes the informality that has crept into journalism these days) logged off from his computer for the last time this week, a chapter closed at this paper that can never be re-written.

It is almost impossible to do justice to Howard’s contribution to The Border Mail and the community.

He is both a gentleman and a champion journalist, says former editor Heath Harrison who first worked under the Welshman as a fresh-faced cadet.

“The breadth and depth of his knowledge of Albury-Wodonga, its people, its issues and its history was, and is, peerless and priceless,” Harrison says.

Simon Dulhunty who, like Harrison, rose from cadet to the newsroom’s top job, describes Howard as one of the most trusted reporters in The Border Mail’s 111-year history.

“He was every editor’s choice to chronicle the most important events both inside and outside the walls of his employer,” Dulhunty says.

“His departure after more than 30 years leaves a gaping hole of sensibility and knowledge that no person or internet can replace.”

First and foremost, his editors agree, Howard “gives a damn” about his readers.

“I like meeting people and I have found that more important than any other qualification,” Howard says.

The list of those he has met or reported on is long and illustrious.

The “usual crop” of politicians, prime ministers, governor-generals, royalty, and entertainers.

Although, chuckling again, he says he’s had to strike a couple off the list, including Rolf Harris, now a convicted paedophile.

“I’d like to put it another way — it’s surprising the people you can meet as a reporter,” he says when asked to name his who’s who of interview subjects.

And it’s surprising the local angle you can uncover it you ask the right questions.

“One of the blokes I met was the chief of the PNG defence force, he was a brigadier general and had piles of medals,” Howard says.

“During a visit to Bandiana, he revealed he’d been at the base as an apprentice and had played footy in the Tallangatta league.

“He never had any money and had to walk from Bandiana to Wodonga or Albury.

“He’d actually played footy on the oval where he was an honoured guest.”

Howard prefers to meet and write about people who nobody has heard of.

Like the man who came into the office and told Howard he’d written a book.

“I said to him, ‘Well, what’s it about?’” Howard recalls.

“He told me he was in Poland during the war as a child and the Russians had almost taken him to Siberia but then they changed their minds and sent him by rail across Russia. He ended up in a British army base in Israel or Palestine.

“This guy, living in Lavington, had written a kind of a book. I edited it and re-interviewed him. He’s still there living in Lavington.”

Then there was story he uncovered about Mary MacKillop long before she was made a saint.

“She turned up at the Albury convent and wanted to stay overnight to catch a train from Sydney to Melbourne,” Howard says.

“The nuns had to refuse her permission on the orders of the priest because she was considered a bit of a rebel.

“The sisters felt bad about it but the priest (who went on to become a bishop) didn’t want her there so she stayed at a pub in Wodonga.

“I spent years trying to find out which one.”

Those previously untold yarns about “real people” get Howard going — that and paddling his canoe on the Murray River.

Or sneaking a quick dip on a “bloody hot” day at Eldorado after a local tipped him off about a great watering hole when he was on the road for the paper’s 50 Towns in 50 Days series.

A newspaper man through and through, Howard says he’s “old-fashioned” in that he believes news is news and advertising is advertising.

“There’s an old saying that if somebody rings you up with a story that’s advertising, if they ring you up and they want something kept out of the paper, that’s news,” he says.

He harbours a healthy scepticism for politicians and PR bods and is particularly scathing of the increasingly common practice of question and answer interviews via email.

He says it stops you getting through to the right person — and the real story.

And he should know, having covered civic affairs on both sides of the border for longer than he cares to remember.

He believes he has the rather dubious honour of being “stuck” covering some of the Border’s longest-running sagas, including the external-internal bypass, Wodonga rail crossing and what was supposed to be the speedy demise of the development corporation.

“They have just outlived me,” he laments.

A big disappointment has been the failure of Albury-Wodonga to unite as one city.

“I think it’s one of the tragedies we didn’t achieve that because we are one community,” he says.

Such thinking is testament to Howard’s deep and long-running passion for this community.

He moved to Albury in 1982, having emigrated to Australia with his wife, Hazel, and their sons, Philip and Robin. Their third son, Brendan, was born here.

He joined The Border Mail with a rich history of experience in Wales where he had worked on several newspapers since 1963.

His love of history and writing about it was born in his home country, where he wrote a history of his home town, Aberystwyth and co-authored a book on St Donat’s Castle.

Howard has gone on to write 30 non-fiction books, including documenting the paper’s own history to celebrate the centenary of The Border Mail.

The Welshman who arrived with no local knowledge became the fountain of knowledge for all things local.

His efforts have been recognised with the TH Mott Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2001 and the Wodonga Council’s Eagle Award in 2005.

Only last month, Howard was bestowed with Rotary’s highest honour — a Paul Harris Fellowship for his services to journalism and the preservation of ourhistory.

During her introduction at the Rotary dinner, The Border Mail’s editor, Di Thomas, said Howard’s contribution to the newspaper, his colleagues and to the wider community had been immense.

“Howard and his family should be proud, as we most definitely are, of his reputation throughout the community for fairness and for telling an accurate story,” she said.

“It will be a difficult task for us to carry on here without him.”

At 69, Howard says he doesn’t feel ready to retire and is certainly not about to give up writing.

He has a few more books in the pipeline — “I may even have a crack at a novel.

“I have no idea of the subject but it won’t be about newspapers.”

That’s a shame, really, when you consider this is a man who has witnessed the evolution of newspapers from hot-metal production and typewriters to computers and the dawn of all things internet.

The Howard Jones byline has graced the top of thousands of stories within The Border Mail’s pages.

But of all the stories he has written, there are two that will forever haunt him.

Two obituaries he thought he’d never have to write.

The first for his editor, Cameron Thompson, in 2008 and the second for his son, Brendan, only last year.

Yet, Howard says, it was during this time of great personal tragedy that he became acutely aware of the close-knit ties that bind him to The Border Mail.

“I know it’s a cliche but it really is like a family and that really showed when we lost Brendan,” he says.

“I couldn’t believe how good people were to us and I believe that culture of caring comes from it being a family business for so many years.”

All of this has made it harder for Howard to officially put down his notepad and pen this week.

And indeed for The Border Mail to formally bid farewell to one of its true icons.

Harrison says Howard Jones is surely one of Albury-Wodonga’s living treasures.

“It’s a brave thing to pack up your life and try your luck somewhere else in the world,” he says.

“We’re lucky he and Hazel chose this part of the world.”