Local Press

I really enjoy reading local papers, and it's sad to think that, free sheets apart, the circulation of local weeklies is generally on the wane. It's rare to open the local weekly paper without seeing someone I know named, and quite probably photographed too, and that's certainly part of the attraction. But I'll happily read local rags when away from home too, even though I don't recognise anyone (or, for the most part, anything) within them. I think the main attraction is a sort of re-settling of the balance - between good news and bad, between big news and little, between big politics and little . . . I find myself somehow brought closer to the times of long ago, when very little that happened beyond the bounds of one's own town or village was really of any importance or note.

Of course, our little community here is as capable of producing bad news stories as any other, but in the local rag the children winning prizes for poetry or song at a local eisteddfod are just as important and newsy as the men up in court after a drunken brawl on a Friday night. Photographs of the car stolen then crashed by joy riders may feature on the front page, but the balance is redressed inside with pictures of the first, second and third prize winning carrots at a local show. As many of the stories warm the heart as chill the marrow - in fact, rather more of them warm the heart. And for the most part, the celebrity culture that uses up so much national newsprint (even in the quality papers, so called) is absent, unless you happen to have a star from Corrie or Emmerdale opening a local fete. The fact is that really, anyone can become a celebrity in the local rag . . . it's even been me, once in a while!

Even the letters page can be fun, despite those correspondents who persist in writing sloganising letters on national politics. There's always someone sending in an old photograph from schooldays or of some long ago civic event or summer pageant, asking for faces to be identified. Even though I don't still live in the community in which I was brought up, I still enjoy seeing those. Long live the local weekly, I say. Our local paper, not always renowned for its accuracy, is nonetheless loved by many - even for its mistakes. For most of us, most of the time, it's a feelgood experience, which I certainly look forward to, week by week.