For a man who claims he was looking forward to retirement while he was still at school, Alan Bignell’s retirement at 80 seems a little overdue.

Mr Bignell, whose final Do You Remember nostalgia column was published in the Kent Messenger on March 20, 2009, started with the KM Group in 1957 as a reporter at the Canterbury office and, just over 50 years later, will hang up his notebook and pen for the last time.

Although he officially retired in 1993, he has been faithfully heading for Maidstone Library to scour the pages of old KMs – frequently spotting his own stories – since then, to compile the weekly slot which tells the news of 50 and 25 years ago.

“When I started on the KM there weren’t any bylines, so it has been interesting looking up stories and working out whether I wrote them or not,” he said.

Mr Bignell worked at many KM offices over the years, including the Maidstone Week Street office, and the Larkfield head office, and even set up one office in his front room when he was, as he describes it the KM’s “man in Faversham”.

His first attempt to get into journalism was not all that successful. He and two school chums from the Tunbridge Wells Technical Institute went for an interview as a reporter, but the first boy called in came out and announced he’d got the job.

The first publication of one of his short stories, while he was doing National Service in Italy, also produced an unfortunate response. As PA to a Lieutenant Colonel, when his story appeared under the byline Private P Bignell (the initial was a mistake) the Colonel collared him and said: “Was that your story? Couldn’t understand a word of it. You’ll have to explain it to me.”

After working as a shorthand typist, he started as a reporter in 1957, and came to Maidstone in 1966, first as chief reporter and later as a news editor, something which he didn’t enjoy, as it took him away from his first love of writing.

He then became the KM’s local government specialist writer, a role which would eventually see the press gallery at KCC’s County Hall named the Bignell Gallery after him.

He said: “I spent more time in County Hall than most of the councillors did; I was there four days a week most weeks.”

Issues he remembers are plans for a third London airport; KCC’s battle with the government over schools and the on/off Channel Tunnel.

He said: “I also did a lot on secrecy within County Hall. They of course called it confidentiality, while we called it secrecy. We never did agree on that.”

Despite being named Kent Journalist of the Year 1989, and being a news man for many years, he said it was not a wrench for him to retire, “I’d looked forward to retirement practically from the day I left school, so I wasn’t unduly upset to retire.”

“I always wanted to write fiction and I have never succeeded. It is a completely different skill,” he added.

Although he worked in fact, he was also a columnist for a variety of papers over the years, although some weeks deadlines proved difficult. “There were times when it got a bit hairy. I remember writing one saying “I’m sorry I failed to do one this week.”

He and his Essex-born wife Audrey, whom he met at school in Tunbridge Wells, married in 1951, and have spent the intervening years gently arguing about which county is superior, while also bringing up three children and two grandchildren.

He said: “I am very fond of the county. It has been very good to me and I like to think I have been good to it,” adding, “after all, it is the best county in the country.”