A recent headline in a regional newspaper read “SCOTLAND’S ‘YES’ VOTE WELCOMED.” It reminded me how easily howlers can still make it into print and set me thinking about boo-boos nearer home, writes Mike Truscott.

I committed one of my own favourites while still a Packet trainee in the late 1960s.

There used to be an annual production by the Penryn Amateur Operatic Society in the town’s Temperance Hall, and Yours Truly was despatched to review one such.

All writers have their “black spots,” and this – reviewing entertainment of any kind – was/is mine.

But there was no excuse for observing that X and Y (names long since forgotten) “were so convincing as man and wife that you could have been forgiven for thinking they were actually married in real life.”

Well, you can guess the rest, can’t you . . . ?

Then, circa 1970, one of my colleagues was another trainee, a lovely young lady by the name of Grania Forbes.

In a Penryn Town Council news report, she referred to “the late Councillor X.” On publication day, she was called into the office of John Kendall, who had been newly installed as editor after a “night of the long knives” in the wake of the Beaverbrook takeover.

The door was slightly ajar, and I can still hear Grania’s softly-spoken “sorry” as John told her: “Councillor X has just phoned me. He says he’s still very much A-L-I-V-E, Grania!!”

Happily, this did not kill her career at birth. With the Press Association and various national newspapers, she went on to spend many years recording Royal events.

She also wrote “My Darling Buffy,” described as a unique and intimate portrayal of the Queen Mother’s childhood and early adult life.