As an executive at Leader Newspapers from 1978-1983, Managing Director Don Brown often gave me ‘intelligence’ projects. Sometimes I knew the project objective; sometimes I had to work blind.

I was a frequent visitor to the Corporate Affairs Office to investigate the records of various companies that held the interest of Don Brown and his fellow Leader directors. One group was the Western Port Publishing group at Koo-Wee-Rup, headed by Chris Fisher. Their papers included the Sun mastheads at places including Hastings, Koo-Wee-Rup, Cranbourne and Phillip Island.

Their small Goss community newspaper printing press was also a pivotal piece in the industry chess game taking place.

Leader took control of the Western Port group. Soon after, eyes turned to the Mornington Leader newspaper, and the Southern Peninsula Gazette weekly at Rosebud.

The first edition (four pages) of the Mornington Leader had gone to press in November 1963, as the brainchild of local printer Arthur Curry and local real estate agent Tom Hast. Arthur had originally wanted to produce a sporting newspaper that would be distributed Peninsula-wide.

Arthur Curry later recalled: “Tom [Hast] arranged a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce where I outlined the project. After the meeting only four members showed further interest.”

As well as Mr Hats, George Allsop of Allsop’s Stationery Store, Bob Brown of Blue Peter Service Station, and Cyril Boyles of Boyle’s Menswear, expressed interest in the venture. They, with Curry, formed Mornington Leader Pty Ltd. Curry was printer, then editor for more than 20 years.

The Mornington Leader and Southern Peninusla Gazette were merged in 1995 to create the Mornington Peninsula Leader. The Leader group, part of News Corp, stopped printing community newspapers in April 2020.

• My company, Local Media Pty Ltd, publishes a Mornington Peninsula Post weekly community newspaper edition of The Local Paper.