Historic copies of Victoria’s St Arnaud Mercury, which was first published in 1864.

St Arnaud owes much to Ella Ebery, editor of the North-Central News, seen here in 2003. The 97-year-old has been a staunch advocate for her town’s interests, and her editorials attacking cutbacks to rural services by former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett won her a national award for excellence in journalism.

Lead blocks, melted down from the previous week’s typeset pages, ready to be used again at the Don Dorrigo Gazette, of New South Wales – the only newspaper printed still using hot metal technology in Australia.

Graeme Millar’s Monday morning task at The Bridge was to melt down the previous edition’s lead plates at 300 degrees Celsius and pour them into ingot moulds. Once cooled they were then fed into the linotype machine and turned into lines of reverse lead type.

Alan Smith came to Dorrigo in 1958 for 12 months of tuition under a renowned English printer, Sel Wilson. That 12 months stretched into 53 years for the typesetter who regularly worked 70-hour weeks. Pictured here in 2003, Alan is producing lines of reverse lead type using a linotype machine. He continued working for the paper until he passed away in August 2011.

A solid steel block filled with reverse lead type ready to be printed by The Bridge‘s Graeme Millar in 2003.

Graeme Millar operating the Miehle printing press. A chain-smoker, Graeme was The Bridge‘s printer from 1961 until 2004. When he retired he left behind four decades of memories, and mounds of cigarette butts at the base of the 107 year-old machine.

Seen here in 2003, John English, publisher of the Don Dorrigo Gazette, puts the finishing touches to a lead block page before printing. The newspaper’s offices are behind the local newsagency in Hickory Street. The Gazette is the only remaining newspaper in Australia printed by hot lead letterpress technology. John began working as a compositor and machinist there in 1961, buying the paper 20 years later. When he passed away in September 2012 his son Michael took over the operation.

This eight-ton Miehle printing press was already 65 years old when purchased by The Bridge newspaper in 1962. It continued to produce the tabloid-sized pages until March 2004, when production of the newspaper was finally digitised.

Near 1700 copies of the Buloke Times are printed twice weekly for the Victorian Wimmera and Sunraysia towns of Donald, Birchip, Charlton, St Arnaud, Watchem and Wycheproof. It is one of only a few small newspapers still printing onsite. Head printer Shane Letts says, “We used to print for a lot of local businesses – letterheads, envelopes, flyers, things like that. But now everyone’s got their own printer.”

The Bridge newspaper was so named in 1909 to appease any interstate rivalry between Koondrook, Victoria, and Barham, NSW – the communities which it services.

What was once a car dealership in McCulloch Street, Donald, became the Buloke Times office in 1970. It’s also a makeshift museum: old printing presses, linotype machines, B&W enlargers and early computers are gathering dust and cobwebs in sheds at the back.

Winchelsea Star editor Stewart Mathison describes the publication as a community newsletter.

The Don Dorrigo Gazette dating back to 1918.

The Bridge building in the Murray River town of Barham, NSW, was a throwback to the days when newspapers were printed on site using technology developed in the 1880s.

Most of the staff of the Buloke Times, a newspaper that is more dependent upon manpower than machinery. Back row from L-R: Aaron Grant (production), David Letts (production manager), Robin Letts (editor), Shane O’Shea (journalist/photographer), Shirley Letts (photographer/dispatch) Brian Bayles (typesetter/compositor). Front row: Carmen Bath (administration), Rose Harris (journalist), Maree Sands (administration), Lilian Kirk (sub-editor). Absent was for the shoot was Birchip office manager Simone Christie.