For my birthday a few years ago, Simon bought me a subscription to the weekend Financial Times, obvs not because I am obsessed with share prices and global business, but because it has the best arts, culture, and review sections and magazines.
You have reminded me of an awkward breakfast table scene at home when my father looked over the top of the Barnet Press and informed me that my boyfriend had somehow been caught and fined for siphoning petrol out of his mother's car.
Great reading, as always. We lived in Dorset but my Daddy commuted to London daily and brought home the Telegraph (despite being a lifelong Labour voter) as Mummie liked the crossword. He folded and unfolded it carefully in order to read such an unwieldy broadsheet on a busy train so that it was still pristine when he got home. We then took it to pieces to save bits we wanted. We had The Observer on a Sunday for balance and I spent many a happy hour clipping from the supplement for scrapbooks. Living in London, I love finding discarded newspapers in non-Roman script, which are ironed and used as talking point wrapping paper. I miss the hard copy Evening Standard, alas no more as the crosswords and sudoku whiled away a long commute. We still have the morning Metro though. We too were a Diana household, and also Bunty and Debbie which were in newsprint than glossy paper and I actually preferred this format. When I picked up my Bunty from the newsagent, Mr Dewey always searched to see what The Four Marys were up to before he gave it to me!
The folding of the newspaper… reminds me so of my dad… he could fold a perfect newspaper to fit under his arm in record time… but perfectly folded every time!! That was an art form!!
Lovely piece and as always I love your illustrating pictures. Today especially ‘Resting woman’. I feel I could be friends with her. We would sit and read our papers and drink our drinks companionably, sharing odd snippets that catch our fancy.
Lovely piece this morning. Growing up in Surrey I commuted to school in Croydon and my dad caught the 7.50 to London Bridge each day. All commuters in those days sat in the same seat, no chatting and hid behind a newspaper. Later whilst at sixth form , a broadsheet enabled enough cover for a sneaky kiss! On the way home The Standard or News was picked up from a man near the platform for the return journey. Later, part of my working life was spent at The Economist ( I was a draughtsman ) not a journalist and every Thursday the weekly edition was ‘put to bed’ at the typesetters in Camden. I loved the back to front typesetting and proof reading the galley presses. Over Christmas I tried to have a cull of my recipe files. Nothing beats the curled up edges of a much loved recipe from an old Women’s Weekly or a novelty cake from Family Circle with evidence of icing mishaps . Needless to say not many pages headed for the bin.
Yes - the significance of newspapers in our social history cannot be over-estimated. For 150 years or more the industry employed thousands and informed millions. Yet today it is on the verge of ceasing to exist. Some brands are making a successful transition to the Web. The canny Rothermeres, in particular, have a thriving on-line product and I am a fan of the radio version of The Times which I think is a clever combination of Radio 4 and 5 Live and which occupies a niche other newspaper owners don't seem to have spotted. But these brand extensions won't save print. As somebody who earned various chunks of his income from newspapers (from "cub" reporter at 16 to proprietor of a chain of weeklies in later life) I am dismayed at how quickly the regional sector has collapsed. Just 30 years ago the industry was vigorous and hugely profitable. The internet has done for the regional press what the tractor did for carthorses - and just as quickly! No point in playing Canute here, it's inevitable but I do think small-town newspapers could have had a future with a lower cost base and more community involvement. When they lost the advertising staples of jobs, motors, house sales and classified to the web, the greedy dullards who ran them basically just gave up. There are still a few decent local weeklies around and I was glad to see the other day that one of the best, the Henley Standard, has been saved by a neighbouring proprietor. But I am immensely gloomy about the next decade. I don't think any of our family in the generation below me ever buys a paper of any sort. (Not even the one who is a successful journalist on radio, TV and podcasts). Late in my career I retreated into special-interest magazines, where I do think highly focused publications have a longer-term future. And a few serious weeklies, such as the New Statesman, Spectator and Economist - all excellent - will retain a print presence. There is something authentic and reliable about a printed article which on-line journalism simply can't emulate. But the golden goose of newspapers is starving and skeletal and I doubt it can survive more than a couple of decades in any recognisable form. After all, London's three day-time newspapers (daft to call them "evenings" when first editions were available at 11) shrank to two, then one, then it was given away free and now it's supposedly weekly, though I have never seen one.
Britain has always had too many newspapers, of course with too little to choose between most of them. How long before the "red tops" are merged into one? Until the Times/Telegraph merger? Until the Guardian goes weekly? Long may the weekend FT remain an outlier!
I met my now husband on a school trip to France when we were both “doing our O’ Levels & was delighted to discover that he had a weekend job in a newsagents - the highlight of my week was our Sunday evening “date” when he would present me with The Observer newspaper & a small wooden box containing Rose & Lemon Turkish Delight lightly dusted with icing sugar - your writing always evokes THE most poignant of memories - thank you!
Thank you for such an interesting subject matter. I grew up with newspapers, magazines, periodicals and comics. My father always brought home the London Evening Standard and The News every evening. We had two Sunday papers and a local paper on Saturdays. I moved through The Beano, Dandy and Topper up to Jackie, Petticoat, Honey and then Cosmopolitan. My mum had three weekly magazines, Woman's Realm, Woman and Woman's Own. Nothing was skimmed. Everything ws read and reread. I remember too buying my first copy of The Manchester Evening News as a student and feeling conforted by it. I saw a Look at Life on Talking Pictures TV recently with a focus on newspaper production. I would think from the early 1960s. The amount of machinery was incredible but in relative terms newspapers and magazines weren't that expensive. I'm sure that more has been lost than gained but moving so much online. I'm aware of the irony as I'm reading your valued column online. Not so long ago I regularly subscribed to several publications but stopped when it was pay by direct debit only. One of the things I miss deeply are the small ads. I can remember trawling through them looking for stuff as well as placing adverts. I love the accompanying pictures too for this week's column.
Great piece. At home there lots of local papers, ours were the Express and Star (Wolverhampton based) or Birmingham Post and Mail. Even more local was Stourbridge News. We have a local paper where we live now but it's not a patch on our old ones - now they're full of houses for sale and local sports rather than zillions of small ads--buy and sell, births, marriages and deaths, jobs, and proper local news.
You always get me thinking and remembering! I was only lamenting our local paper to my father the other day, it was a huge broadsheet full of local events, sheep and cattle prices, school activities, and classifieds! If you wanted to know what was going on, that's where you found out, if you needed something second hand, or to learn of a death, birth or marriage etc, and we knew the events photographer would turn up to every local event, and to scan the pages to find the photos he'd taken and if we were on them. Exam results for every school, weather predictions from a local man who watched nature - it was a thick weekly treasure trove. These days it's about a thin as a pamphlet, every story has already been on Facebook and it costs a fortune! I miss it!!
Jane, your piece took me right back to Stockport in my young days.
As a 13 year old I did a paper round in Offerton every weekday afternoon after school, delivering the Stockport Express and the Manchester Evening News. Each Friday when I returned the canvas bag (that distinctive whiff of newsprint) to the newsagents, Mr Parkinson handed over the princely sum of 5 shillings (25p). 57 years later I could still retrace those steps on that round and picture those houses whose letter boxes threatened to take the top off my fingers as they snapped shut, or where the dog would come galloping down the hall to grab the paper from the letterbox and probably shred it to little pieces.
Thank you for another wonderful start to my day. Though given today's subject, perhaps wonderful is not quite the right word. I retired after 25+ years as a journalist and can hardly cope with the changes to newspapers, few of which are improvements. My Upper Midwestern (USA) community used to have two competing daily papers as well as two competing university papers. No longer. The long, slow death of newspapers in America is clearly one of the main reasons we find ourselves in the horrifying political situation we are now in.
Growing up in Hampshire we took The Manchester Guardian for my Mancunian father and after his death, mum chose The Telegraph and The Sunday Express. The local paper used to list the principal attendees at weddings and funerals and in the case of wedding detailed the bride's gown and going away outfit as well. It even featured my mum's eventual retirement as a ward sister at the local hospital in the1970s.
At my boarding school the junior common room was supplied with The Daily Telegraph and the senior common room with The Guardian. I have remained a loyal Guardian reader.
Living in Bradford, West Yorkshire, I was devotee of the evening Telegraph and Argus. Moving across the Pennines we used to take the Manchester Evening News (now I follow on line) and get a free once weekly Stockport Express if I'm remembering correctly. Now I deliver to my neighbours in our close a community newspaper, The Stockport Post, which until recently used to have unique editions for each Stockport suburb but that has proved too costly. It's much less useful now.
I miss magazines as well. The thick ones that showed beautiful women, clothes, interiors, and great stores. Newspapers were Sunday only thing but they were big and thick with wonderful ads. Also greatly miss knitting magazines. They were wonderful.
As you, I adore the printed news. Many of my first jobs were in newspapers — typesetter, photographer, and writer. I adored the smell of ink and paper so much that I am certain this is why my son’s father was a printer…. Where I live we only have a small weekly paper that shares all the news we already know because we learned it at the grocer, funeral home, or church. Even so, just holding the paper makes the news “new” and somehow more important.
Great article that really resonated with me and plenty of others, judging by the comments. One of my parents brought the Evening Standard home every evening, it had to be the late edition. My mum did the crossword although it was often a collaborative effort with her reading out the clues if she got stuck. Later my dad would do the cryptic. Recently we downsized and I had a huge argument with my husband because he refused to part with his yellowing collection of newspapers from iconic days in history. Reading this article makes me feel better about that!
A real pleasure to read, as always - thank you. As a child I read the Brighton & Hove Evening Argus for possible news of people I knew, and The Times for a view of the wider world. I remember the novelty of photos in colour (first on the front page and then inside, I think). Now I read The Week for a quick digest of a variety of papers - something lost, and something gained. Wishing you a good week ahead.
You have reminded me of an awkward breakfast table scene at home when my father looked over the top of the Barnet Press and informed me that my boyfriend had somehow been caught and fined for siphoning petrol out of his mother's car.
This made me and Simon laugh! Thank you.
Parents always have a way to catch us in the act, right?
Great reading, as always. We lived in Dorset but my Daddy commuted to London daily and brought home the Telegraph (despite being a lifelong Labour voter) as Mummie liked the crossword. He folded and unfolded it carefully in order to read such an unwieldy broadsheet on a busy train so that it was still pristine when he got home. We then took it to pieces to save bits we wanted. We had The Observer on a Sunday for balance and I spent many a happy hour clipping from the supplement for scrapbooks. Living in London, I love finding discarded newspapers in non-Roman script, which are ironed and used as talking point wrapping paper. I miss the hard copy Evening Standard, alas no more as the crosswords and sudoku whiled away a long commute. We still have the morning Metro though. We too were a Diana household, and also Bunty and Debbie which were in newsprint than glossy paper and I actually preferred this format. When I picked up my Bunty from the newsagent, Mr Dewey always searched to see what The Four Marys were up to before he gave it to me!
The folding of the newspaper… reminds me so of my dad… he could fold a perfect newspaper to fit under his arm in record time… but perfectly folded every time!! That was an art form!!
They broke the mould!!!
Lovely piece and as always I love your illustrating pictures. Today especially ‘Resting woman’. I feel I could be friends with her. We would sit and read our papers and drink our drinks companionably, sharing odd snippets that catch our fancy.
Sounds lovely! I'd be happy to join you.
Lovely piece this morning. Growing up in Surrey I commuted to school in Croydon and my dad caught the 7.50 to London Bridge each day. All commuters in those days sat in the same seat, no chatting and hid behind a newspaper. Later whilst at sixth form , a broadsheet enabled enough cover for a sneaky kiss! On the way home The Standard or News was picked up from a man near the platform for the return journey. Later, part of my working life was spent at The Economist ( I was a draughtsman ) not a journalist and every Thursday the weekly edition was ‘put to bed’ at the typesetters in Camden. I loved the back to front typesetting and proof reading the galley presses. Over Christmas I tried to have a cull of my recipe files. Nothing beats the curled up edges of a much loved recipe from an old Women’s Weekly or a novelty cake from Family Circle with evidence of icing mishaps . Needless to say not many pages headed for the bin.
Yes - the significance of newspapers in our social history cannot be over-estimated. For 150 years or more the industry employed thousands and informed millions. Yet today it is on the verge of ceasing to exist. Some brands are making a successful transition to the Web. The canny Rothermeres, in particular, have a thriving on-line product and I am a fan of the radio version of The Times which I think is a clever combination of Radio 4 and 5 Live and which occupies a niche other newspaper owners don't seem to have spotted. But these brand extensions won't save print. As somebody who earned various chunks of his income from newspapers (from "cub" reporter at 16 to proprietor of a chain of weeklies in later life) I am dismayed at how quickly the regional sector has collapsed. Just 30 years ago the industry was vigorous and hugely profitable. The internet has done for the regional press what the tractor did for carthorses - and just as quickly! No point in playing Canute here, it's inevitable but I do think small-town newspapers could have had a future with a lower cost base and more community involvement. When they lost the advertising staples of jobs, motors, house sales and classified to the web, the greedy dullards who ran them basically just gave up. There are still a few decent local weeklies around and I was glad to see the other day that one of the best, the Henley Standard, has been saved by a neighbouring proprietor. But I am immensely gloomy about the next decade. I don't think any of our family in the generation below me ever buys a paper of any sort. (Not even the one who is a successful journalist on radio, TV and podcasts). Late in my career I retreated into special-interest magazines, where I do think highly focused publications have a longer-term future. And a few serious weeklies, such as the New Statesman, Spectator and Economist - all excellent - will retain a print presence. There is something authentic and reliable about a printed article which on-line journalism simply can't emulate. But the golden goose of newspapers is starving and skeletal and I doubt it can survive more than a couple of decades in any recognisable form. After all, London's three day-time newspapers (daft to call them "evenings" when first editions were available at 11) shrank to two, then one, then it was given away free and now it's supposedly weekly, though I have never seen one.
Britain has always had too many newspapers, of course with too little to choose between most of them. How long before the "red tops" are merged into one? Until the Times/Telegraph merger? Until the Guardian goes weekly? Long may the weekend FT remain an outlier!
I met my now husband on a school trip to France when we were both “doing our O’ Levels & was delighted to discover that he had a weekend job in a newsagents - the highlight of my week was our Sunday evening “date” when he would present me with The Observer newspaper & a small wooden box containing Rose & Lemon Turkish Delight lightly dusted with icing sugar - your writing always evokes THE most poignant of memories - thank you!
I can't think of anything more romantic! Lovely.
Thank you for such an interesting subject matter. I grew up with newspapers, magazines, periodicals and comics. My father always brought home the London Evening Standard and The News every evening. We had two Sunday papers and a local paper on Saturdays. I moved through The Beano, Dandy and Topper up to Jackie, Petticoat, Honey and then Cosmopolitan. My mum had three weekly magazines, Woman's Realm, Woman and Woman's Own. Nothing was skimmed. Everything ws read and reread. I remember too buying my first copy of The Manchester Evening News as a student and feeling conforted by it. I saw a Look at Life on Talking Pictures TV recently with a focus on newspaper production. I would think from the early 1960s. The amount of machinery was incredible but in relative terms newspapers and magazines weren't that expensive. I'm sure that more has been lost than gained but moving so much online. I'm aware of the irony as I'm reading your valued column online. Not so long ago I regularly subscribed to several publications but stopped when it was pay by direct debit only. One of the things I miss deeply are the small ads. I can remember trawling through them looking for stuff as well as placing adverts. I love the accompanying pictures too for this week's column.
Great piece. At home there lots of local papers, ours were the Express and Star (Wolverhampton based) or Birmingham Post and Mail. Even more local was Stourbridge News. We have a local paper where we live now but it's not a patch on our old ones - now they're full of houses for sale and local sports rather than zillions of small ads--buy and sell, births, marriages and deaths, jobs, and proper local news.
You always get me thinking and remembering! I was only lamenting our local paper to my father the other day, it was a huge broadsheet full of local events, sheep and cattle prices, school activities, and classifieds! If you wanted to know what was going on, that's where you found out, if you needed something second hand, or to learn of a death, birth or marriage etc, and we knew the events photographer would turn up to every local event, and to scan the pages to find the photos he'd taken and if we were on them. Exam results for every school, weather predictions from a local man who watched nature - it was a thick weekly treasure trove. These days it's about a thin as a pamphlet, every story has already been on Facebook and it costs a fortune! I miss it!!
Jane, your piece took me right back to Stockport in my young days.
As a 13 year old I did a paper round in Offerton every weekday afternoon after school, delivering the Stockport Express and the Manchester Evening News. Each Friday when I returned the canvas bag (that distinctive whiff of newsprint) to the newsagents, Mr Parkinson handed over the princely sum of 5 shillings (25p). 57 years later I could still retrace those steps on that round and picture those houses whose letter boxes threatened to take the top off my fingers as they snapped shut, or where the dog would come galloping down the hall to grab the paper from the letterbox and probably shred it to little pieces.
Thank you for another wonderful start to my day. Though given today's subject, perhaps wonderful is not quite the right word. I retired after 25+ years as a journalist and can hardly cope with the changes to newspapers, few of which are improvements. My Upper Midwestern (USA) community used to have two competing daily papers as well as two competing university papers. No longer. The long, slow death of newspapers in America is clearly one of the main reasons we find ourselves in the horrifying political situation we are now in.
Growing up in Hampshire we took The Manchester Guardian for my Mancunian father and after his death, mum chose The Telegraph and The Sunday Express. The local paper used to list the principal attendees at weddings and funerals and in the case of wedding detailed the bride's gown and going away outfit as well. It even featured my mum's eventual retirement as a ward sister at the local hospital in the1970s.
At my boarding school the junior common room was supplied with The Daily Telegraph and the senior common room with The Guardian. I have remained a loyal Guardian reader.
Living in Bradford, West Yorkshire, I was devotee of the evening Telegraph and Argus. Moving across the Pennines we used to take the Manchester Evening News (now I follow on line) and get a free once weekly Stockport Express if I'm remembering correctly. Now I deliver to my neighbours in our close a community newspaper, The Stockport Post, which until recently used to have unique editions for each Stockport suburb but that has proved too costly. It's much less useful now.
I miss magazines as well. The thick ones that showed beautiful women, clothes, interiors, and great stores. Newspapers were Sunday only thing but they were big and thick with wonderful ads. Also greatly miss knitting magazines. They were wonderful.
As you, I adore the printed news. Many of my first jobs were in newspapers — typesetter, photographer, and writer. I adored the smell of ink and paper so much that I am certain this is why my son’s father was a printer…. Where I live we only have a small weekly paper that shares all the news we already know because we learned it at the grocer, funeral home, or church. Even so, just holding the paper makes the news “new” and somehow more important.
Great article that really resonated with me and plenty of others, judging by the comments. One of my parents brought the Evening Standard home every evening, it had to be the late edition. My mum did the crossword although it was often a collaborative effort with her reading out the clues if she got stuck. Later my dad would do the cryptic. Recently we downsized and I had a huge argument with my husband because he refused to part with his yellowing collection of newspapers from iconic days in history. Reading this article makes me feel better about that!
A real pleasure to read, as always - thank you. As a child I read the Brighton & Hove Evening Argus for possible news of people I knew, and The Times for a view of the wider world. I remember the novelty of photos in colour (first on the front page and then inside, I think). Now I read The Week for a quick digest of a variety of papers - something lost, and something gained. Wishing you a good week ahead.