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Feature ArticlesTHE THREE RIVERS TALKING NEWSPAPER (3RTN) The origins of Talking Newspapers for the Blind (and the partially sighted) are in the Talking Book Service which began in 1933, but it was not until 1957 that the first talking newspaper appeared in the shape of a solitary reel-to-reel tape recorder in Wales. Each Thursday the editor of the “Aberdare Leader” and his reporters used to tape items from the newspaper to keep local blind people up with the gossip and news of that Welsh mining town. The hour long tape was then dropped in to the Aberdare Institute for the Blind on Friday night and 60 or 70 people would come to listen to it. Another early pioneer was the Glasgow tape recording club. Later, Enfield in 1960, Canterbury in 1966 and Bexley in 1968 began offering a limited news service on tape. In the Beccles area, it was Vic Mays, the former editor and publisher of Waveney Life who, in 1979, distributed specially recorded tapes for the blind from his bedroom studio. The first Talking Newspaper in East Anglia, in the form we know it today, began in Colchester in 1973, followed by Ipswich in 1977.The Norwich “Chatterbox” was launched in 1978, with ”Sound East” coming out of Lowestoft and the ”Grapevine” from Great Yarmouth in 1979/80. In 1991, those in the “Beccles & Bungay Journal” catchment area, listening to Lowestoft news from “Sound East” requested a local tape of their own and the “Three Rivers Talking Newspaper” was born, with 27 volunteers to read and mail out the tapes. The first officers were David Wuyts, his wife Joan and Cath Bird, who are all still on the 3RTN organising committee. “Sound East” provided £4,000 worth of recording and copying equipment. The Community wing of Bungay High School became the production studio and the first edition of our newspaper went out to 87 listeners on June 21st 1991. Every week since then our teams of helpers have put every B&BJ onto tape. Incidentally, our name comes from the three rivers in our listening area: the Waveney at Beccles and Bungay, the Blyth at Halesworth and the Chet at Loddon. We work on a five week cycle. We thus have five teams, each consisting of four readers, a recordist and two administrators who check each tape in and out. (Of the five teams of volunteer readers, one is specially formed from pupils of local High Schools, primarily from Bungay.) An editor buys two copies of the new B&BJ on Friday morning, cuts them up into separate articles and arranges them for reading. The team of readers read, in rotation, onto a 90 minute tape on Friday night and the majority of listeners receive it in their Saturday morning post. The tapes are sent out and returned in special plastic wallets, courtesy of the Post Office. Listeners play the cassette tape either on their own equipment or on a machine loaned by 3RTN. In addition a taped magazine, of local memories, gardening and poems, and a music tape are issued every so many months along with the newspaper. During the Bungay Festival each year, we have two Friday open evenings when people can come in to see us record and prepare a mailing. This often results in new volunteers for this valuable community service. This year, the Reverend Mother from All Hallows Convent at Ditchingham brought Sister Winifred, a regular listener to our tapes, to such an evening to find out how it all happens.
She took the photograph shown here of Sister Winifred standing with Diana Belcher (admin) while Michael Belcher, Vaughan Shea, Martin Evans and Maureen Ankeret prepare to read. Vaughan on this occasion is also controlling the recording desk, a deft feat indeed! (My thanks to Robin Limmer for the historical background.)
www.bungay-suffolk.co.uk |
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