JULIAN VIGNOLES Assistant commissioning editor, Entertainment and Music Programmes, RTE One of my jobs was to bring the final pages - in those un-electronic days - to Heuston station to go Kerry for printing. Bike was the only way in rush hour because we were always late. Once or twice I had to run along the platform as the train pulled out and hand the parcel to a passenger. Julie Parsons typeset, John Waters appeared on the scene, then the week Elvis died Joe Jackson arrives in with his 'the King and I' article. Karl Tsigdinos was reluctantly sent to review a new band from the northside who were "going to make it big". They did. I left after two years, because I was lucky to get a job in the new RT� Radio 2. Niall signed my card: "Just when you learn to see past your nose, you feic off on us!". It seemed tough at the time, but he was right.

TARA McCARTHY Fiction writer I worked there in 1992, a big year for the magazine, which was shifting from old-school printing methods to shiny new Macs. I had the privilege of teaching Bill Graham how to use a computer. I vividly remember his excited "ah"s when the magic of it all began to sink in. Working alongside Bill, Liam Mackey, Liam Fay, George Byrne, Lorraine Freeney and Stuart Clark, I can't help but feel like I was there during a sort of all-star era. I'm not sure there's ever been another year of my life that was so rich with music, conversation, growth and drink, DECLAN LYNCH Columnist and author The first trip I had abroad for Hot Press was to do a piece on Blue Oyster Cult in London. That was a very cool thing to be doing, except I'd never been on a plane before. Niall had to bring me out to the airport and give me detailed instructions on how to get on a plane. In our minds we were part of that international great cultural movement;

and yet we were still Irish and we had to deal with all the limitations of that - like not being able to get on a plane without expert advice. Hot Press came along at the perfect time. It was right when Ireland was changing fundamentally. We had come through the whole showbands thing, and rock 'n' roll had just came along in Ireland seriously. Hot Press both covered it and contributed to it.

LIAM MACKEY Sportswriter I call it the Home Farm of Irish journalism; it brought a lot of writers through. Those long production nights were always made bearable by the people working on the paper. I can remember Arthur Matthews unveiling his priest character he used to call Father Ted Crilly. He linked up with Graham Linehan, who was another writer and they went to London to make their fortune. I think of people like that and I think of Bill Graham, who was the closest I have come in my life to working with a genius. He could turn his hand to anything, a great person to be around. It might sound a bit pompous now, but the thing it always had going for it was that it was a sort of writer's paper. I think that's why you see so many people around the Irish media now who cut their teeth on Hot Press.