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The Newbury Weekly News goes to print on a Wednesday afternoon.
But as one issue wraps, the work of volunteers at Kennet Cassette – Newbury’s talking newspaper for the blind and partially sighted – is just getting started.
The charity, founded in May 1976, celebrated the 2,500th edition of its free voluntary service on Thursday, October 24, at a gathering at the Fair Close Centre, attended by around 40 volunteers.
Each Thursday evening, a team of four readers and a recording engineer, known as a ‘knob twiddler’, produce up to two hours of audio from newspaper cuttings at their office in Gilbert Court, Thatcham.
Recordings are then copied and posted on Friday mornings to around 70 listeners across West Berkshire and some further afield who would otherwise struggle to keep updated with the latest news developments.
The team switched to recording on USB drives, previously recording on compact cassettes until 2017.
Once a month, they produce a more general monthly review which is copied and distributed in a similar way.
Joint founder Peter Dann, from Cold Ash, said: “The people who receive are happy, as a lot are living on their own.
“Even if they have some partial sight, reading a newspaper with a magnifying glass is hard.
“People seem to like it, so we keep doing it.”
Royal Mail runs a scheme called Articles for the Blind which enables blind and partially sighted people, and the organisations supporting them, to post certain items free of charge.
“We couldn’t exist if we had to pay for postage,” added Mr Dann. “We’re reliant on voluntary donations.”
Please contact Kennet Cassettes at https://shorturl.at/6GeUj to volunteer or suggest someone who would benefit from its service.
The talking newspaper service started in 1960s. There are around 300 services across the UK today.
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