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The mind is like a wind-up wrist watch, you’ve got to keep turning it or it will get rusty and seize up, veteran journalist Ted Simmons says.
And at 80-years-young he would know about ticker – as one of the oldest, if not the oldest, working journalist in Australia.
Not that he notices.
“Well I don’t (think about it),” he said.
His career began as a 14-year-old with the now defunct Sydney Daily Mirror in 1943 before he started reading the news for the number one radio station in the country at the time, 2SM.
But the man who has spent the past 37 years pumping out stories for national news agency, Australian Associated Press (AAP), says keeping his mind active is one of the keys to his longevity.
“If you wind up a wrist watch it works,” Simmons said.
“If you don’t wind up a wrist watch it stops and then it becomes rusty and then you can’t use it anymore.
“So if your mind is used all the time it stays supple, it stays fluid, it keeps working and while it keeps working you keep living.”
Over the course of 65 years in the business, Simmons has seen man land on the moon and the opening of the Opera House but there is one memory that still takes centre stage.
“A day in 1946 when I’d been working all night … I walked out of the office about seven in the morning … where people were dancing in the streets, strangers were hugging each other – it was the end of the war.”
He still has the last war edition of the newspaper he was working on at the time as a reminder of the moment.
Simmons says the computer age has changed the atmosphere of the newsroom, making things easier but sucking out some of the buzz.
“The noise from the typewriters and things like that all added to the atmosphere of the day and just made it seem interesting and exciting,” he said.
“It’s become a much quieter place, now it’s sanitised.
“The excitement to me is no longer there as it used to be.”
Simmons, who was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2006 for services to sport and journalism, says he has never had a desire to reach the top of his game.
“I never aspired to be the top person. I have become the top person in a number of areas but that was more through circumstances,” he said.
And how.
His services to journalism, including working on AAP’s sports desk since 1969, only scratches the surface of Simmons’ involvement in the sporting arena.
He is chairman of the honour committee for the Australian National Hall of Fame for Soccer, president of four different soccer federations and is in the process of penning his tenth book on the subject.
And he is showing no sign of slowing down.
“While the body holds out and while the mind holds out I’ll keep doing things,” he said.
“I will never ever try to become a vegetable.
“If you enjoy what you’re doing you can relax.”
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