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The earliest talking newspapers were made in the 1960’s when cumbersome reel to reel recorders were carried to the homes of visually impaired people. In 1968 Ronald Sturt (MBE) from The Talking Newspaper Association United Kingdom (TNAUK) was at the University of Aberystwyth studying reading support skills for disabled people. During a visit to Sweden he noticed people were producing cassettes with local news and felt we could do the same in this country. Local Talking Newspapers began here around 1976. The story goes that the idea of a personal news cassette appealed to a Welsh postman as he had many partially sighted and disabled listener on his round living in remote cottages and farms and out of touch with the community. His news tape with local news and information for his listener was delivered with their post and soon the idea spread.
Our founder’s history
Maurice Pockock, a retired air traffic controller, founded The Slough and District Talking Newspaper for the Blind in 1979. With the help of Slough Council for Voluntary Service and two friends - Alan Griffiths and Percy Whitford, lots of hard work and donations from Slough Round Table and sixteen local schools, community groups and charities, the service was launched in September. It cost over £6,000 but the Slough Round Table raised most of the money at a fair. The local schools  community and charities also contributed in cash or kind once it was established the Talking Newspaper was relatively cheap to run. One tape can be wiped clean and reused a number of times before it is discarded. Running costs at that time amounted to £600 a year for replacement cassettes and pouches as well as repairs to the machines.
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“The National Talking Newspaper has about 400 local Newspaper Association affiliates in Britain.”
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The object of the service was to be the link between the blind and the affairs of the local community as reported in the local press. The district they covered was the Borough of Slough and the adjacent areas in East Berkshire and South Bucks. Volunteers met at the day centre in William Street to start recording at 7.30 pm each Friday and returned the next morning to make the copies and took them to the Post Office before they were delivered on Monday morning.
How it worked
Blind and partially sighted people received a regular weekly newspaper and a monthly magazine on 90-minute cassette tapes distributed by post. The whole service was completely free and if any eligible person either did not have a cassette player or would find it difficult to obtain one, they provided a machine on permanent loan, also free of charge.
The Current service
The Slough and District Talking Newspaper Association is an independent registered charity (Reg. No 285948), still run entirely by unpaid volunteers. The Royal Mail delivers our bright yellow pouches containing the cassette postage free under their “Articles for the Blind” service. The hundreds of tapes, yellow pouches and all the equipment are funded by charitable donations from local firms and the general public.
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