DES FRANKLIN,
Sir, - As a former news editor of the Evening Mail I enjoyed Hugh Oram's delightful article about that lamented journal (An Irishman's Diary, July 20th).
It brought back many memories, one of which concerns a letter to the editor which the Mail published in the mid-1940s. It was from somebody who claimed to have discovered an urn which bore an inscription for which he sought readers' assistance in translating.
The inscription read : "Iti sapis spo tan datino ne." In the newsroom of the Irish Press (where I worked at that time) we pored over it until a roar of laughter from the late Joe Dennigan told us that the mystery was solved. After a while we telephoned the Mail and told them of the translation. The letter was removed from the later editions.
Also around that time the Mail published two pictures side by side, one showing the bishops who had attended the Church of Ireland Synod and the other showing the prize-winners at Goff's donkey show. Unfortunately, the captions were transposed and the donkeys were depicted as bishops with their full ecclesiastical titles, as was the custom in those days, while the bishops were described as prize-winning donkeys and it was recorded which of them had won green stars and other awards. I cannot remember now which bishop was awarded "Best Donkey in Show".
On the following day the Archbishop of Dublin (the Most Rev Dr Barton) was seen heading for the Mail offices. Everybody hid. It transpired, however, that the Archbishop had a sense of humour and all he wanted was to obtain additional copies of the paper to send to friends abroad.
Those were truly wonderful days in the newspaper world and, best of all, we were young. - Yours, etc.,
DES FRANKLIN, Braemor Avenue, Dublin 14.