Today is exactly 45 years since I started my first full-time job as a journalist.

I did some earlier, paid casual work for the Manchester Evening News, a start-up called City Life, was two years on the Manchester University student union’s Mancunian newspaper and wrote news stories for the National Union of Student’s National Student newspaper.

On Monday January 5 1981, I reported for duty as the staff writer on Practical Computing magazine at Business Press International at Quadrant House in Sutton, Surrey. At the time it was unusual for someone with a science degree to get a journalism job… but at Practical Computing, that background was seen as an asset.