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May 2019
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Honour is just the ticket for loyal volunteer Bill
Good news celebration
A MAN who has dedicated 40 years of volunteering to help put together a newspaper for the blind has been honoured by a travel company.
SIR Martyn Lewis (above), whose good news campaigning was one of the inspirations for the birth of the Mansfield, Ashfield and Warsop News Journal, helped mark our fifth birthday. The former television newsreader met local business leaders as part of a whistlestop visit to Mansfield. lSee pages 4 and 5.
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THE Mansfield, Ashfield and Warsop News Journal success story of championing and celebrating means that we are marking our fifth anniversary by making it even easier to pick your copy of the free good news paper. The monthly News Journal is now available at the Oak Tree Lane Tesco Extra store in Mansfield. You can already pick up your copy at the Tesco Extra on Chesterfield Road South in Mansfield, as well as many other places across Mansfield, Ashfield and Warsop. They include the Four Seasons Shopping Centre, the Central Library, West Nottinghamshire College, the Civic Quarter, and McDonald’s in Mansfield; King’s Mill Hospital and the Idlewells Shopping Centre in Sutton; Kirkby Festival Hall; and the Arts and Craft Centre, Edwinstowe. If your business or organisation would like to carry copies of the News Journal each month, contact 01623 372157.
Travel firm Skills Holidays has named a single-decker coach that has travelled around Europe after Bill Purdue, who regularly uses items from the Mansfield, Ashfield and Warsop News Journal for the talking newspaper. Bill, 71, a retired librarian, is the editor of the Mansfield and Ashfield Echo, which is recorded for the blind and partially-sighted once a fortnight and sent out free of charge. He was nominated to be one of Nottingham-based Skills Holidays’ Stars of Skills after the travel firm appealed for local heroes to have a coach named after them, as part of its 100th anniversary celebrations. Bill, of Skegby, was put forward by fellow volunteer on the newspaper, Janet Roberts, and was presented with the honorary namesake at Skills’ open day at their head office in Bulwell. Bill said: “It’s a big surprise, it’s amazing. I’m very flattered. “If people see my name on the side of that bus, they will say ‘who on Earth’s that?!’ Bill, who had previously worked in hospital radio, had gone along to a meeting in 1979 of a group of people thinking about setting up a talking newspaper. The pilot edition, only 30 minutes long, was recorded in the former Mansfield studio of BBC Radio Nottingham in the October of that year.
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BILL Purdue, editor of the Mansfield and Ashfield Echo talking newspaper, alongside the coach that has been named in his honour. He had already been editor of a Chad — they said ‘yes, you can use talking newspaper in Coventry, our material’. before returning to Nottinghamshire “Now we use the Mansfield and for a librarian job. Ashfield News Journal, and we also Forty years later, he is still going, got permission to use any relevant helping to co-ordinate the recordings items from the Nottingham Post.” of content as part of a team of around As well as using local newspaper 20 volunteers. content, the volunteers also record Over the years, the team has paid their own interviews, articles and for cassette-copiers out of their own features for each 75-minute edition, pocket, and had to find somewhere which is available on CD or memory to record. stick and posted free-of-charge by Royal Mail. “It’s all local news,” said Bill, who also volunteers at Queen’s Medical The team meets every other TuesCentre, Nottingham. day at a studio in Mansfield and the “We started off with the Mansfield newspaper is distributed to 125 peoEmail news items to news@ news-journal.co.uk
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ple in Mansfield and Ashfield, with one former native having the paper delivered to Wales. Bill said: “I enjoy doing it. It’s nice to get nice comments from the listeners. You know you are doing something worthwhile.” Janet, a features writer on the newspaper for more than 30 years, who nominated Bill, said: “The newspaper is an amazing production that goes out every other Tuesday. “It needs an enormous amount of material and most features last about four minutes. “Bill has become a good personal friend. “He is amazing. There’s hardly a recording in 40 years that he hasn’t attended. “He’s always there and it’s a huge task. People send content in and he has to sort all that — getting it worked out, who to read it, and how long it’s going to take. “He plans his holiday around it — everything is geared towards the Echo. “It’s staggering — to do that for 40 years is some commitment.” Nigel Skill, chairman of Skills Holidays, added: “It gives me great pleasure to name one of our coaches after Bill, who is such a devoted servant to not only his community, but to the blind and partially-sighted in his community. “We had so many nominations from our appeal to find a local hero, but we just couldn’t ignore the hard work and commitment that Bill has poured into the talking newspaper over the past 40 years. We salute you, Bill.” Follow us @ MansAsh News