About me (summary)...

My name is Julian Swift, and I'm the proofreader!

Here is a summary of my career – a detailed version can be found a little further down the page.

• 1977: Began career as an apprentice proofreader at Gale & Polden in Aldershot, including study at Guildford College of Technology.
  Successfully completed apprenticeship, passing City & Guilds Certificate 518 in Printing.
• 1982: Proofreader at Optichrome in Woking.
  Employed during a busy period. Received training in the Bindery, and retrained to become their sole platemaker.
• 1985: Started my own proofreading business in Farnborough, Hampshire.
• 1987: Began second career as a mostly self-taught computer programmer for an Insurance Broker in Farnborough, Hampshire.
• 2014: Resumed my proofreading career when an opportunity was offered to me to check some calendars and diaries on a freelance basis, and I've been doing work for them ever since.

About me (detailed)...

In 1977, aged 16, I left school I began my career as an apprentice proofreader at Gale & Polden, a large commercial printing company in Aldershot, Hampshire. As part of my four-year apprenticeship, I studied at Guildford County College of Technology – in the first year full-time, in subsequent years day- release. When I wasn't studying at college, I honed my trade at my workplace.

I successfully completed my apprenticeship in 1981, and passed the City & Guilds 518 Certificate in Printing. My employment with Gale & Polden continued (but now as a "journeyman") until almost the end of the year, when the company closed.

My next employment was in 1982 at Optichrome, in Woking, Surrey, where I helped their full-time proofreader when he was overloaded with work, but otherwise I was trained to help with their Muller collating machine, and to help with the folding machine and hand-collating. Then I was trained in the film planning and platemaking department, where I learned how to use a horizontal camera for shooting halftones, planning mono, spot-colour and four-colour filmwork, and platemaking. I then became the full-time platemaker, occasionally returning to do some proofreading at busy times or covering for holidays.

Unhappy with how little proofreading I was required to do, when my old Head-Reader from Gale & Polden asked me to join him in his own proofreading company, I seized the opportunity and I set up my own company to subcontract to him, and to proofread for some ex-Gale & Polden colleagues who had set up typesetting companies in the local area. I successfully ran my company from 1985 to around 1990, by which time the industry was undergoing major changes. My biggest competition was from computer spell checkers and grammar checkers. I and my fellow proofreaders knew that they were no real competition for a human proofreader, but at that time too much faith was being put into technology. I had already begun to teach myself how to program computers in the C and BASIC languages, but my programming passion was in databases.

Since 1987 I have been the Head of IT at an independent insurance broker in Farnborough, Hampshire. My role has been designing, writing and implementing their back-end administration database, but I have also been responsible for designing and producing their website, all of their stationery (including Microsoft Word Forms to be completed by clients on their computers), and I'm responsible for producing the year-end accounts.

During this period, from time to time I have been asked to do some proofreading, mainly minutes of company meetings and students' dissertations. At least it means that I have kept my hand (or eye) in!

I now felt that I wanted to return full-time to the job that had given me the most satisfaction and enjoyment, namely proofreading!

With a passion to return to the job I love, since 2014 my ambition is being fulfilled. I am now in my sixth year of proofreading calendars and diaries for the largest UK distributor of calendars, based in Exeter. I have also proofread a self-published book for a local client. Using my Microsoft Word skills, I was also able to create the page layout (including running headers and page numbers), and frontispiece, title and title verso pages, and created the contents page.

Footnotes

The quoted text in the right-hand column of each page are my own thoughts of just some of the things that a proofreader has to do in order to diligently perform his or her job effectively.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that the line that has been "drawn" by the pen in my logo should be red (or blue), but not green. The simple reason for this is that I tried the line in red, and felt that it was not as "friendly" and "enticing" as the green version, and as I wanted the "slogan" in blue, I felt that green was the best option.