Riding high: Cheah during his days as a reporter on his motorcycle outside The Star office in Weld Quay, Penang in 1972.
MY first full-time job, when I was 17, was in The Star. I didn’t join as a journalist; rather, I was one of a crew of about 30 people, mostly women, employed as casual labour to fold the newspaper overnight.
This was in December 1971 in Penang; The Star had launched that September, and was printed on an old Heidelberg printing press purchased from Germany, producing broadsheets which required folding by hand.
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