Talk of the Town

Most people who purchase Northern Life usually sit feet up, magazine in hand, browsing. However, not all of our northern followers, are readers, but are in fact, listeners…

In 1968, senior librarian Ronald Sturt went on a study visit to Västerås in Sweden. The library there had, with the local association for the blind, started a talking newspaper, Arosbandet.And so, in January 1970, one of the first Talking Newspapers was born. Tape cassettes dropped through the letterboxes of 20 blind people in Cardiganshire. The idea caught on and, slowly but surely, Talking Newspapers began to spring up in other parts of the country, especially up’ north!

In 1975, a group of friends met in response to a notice in the local newspaper to see if it would be possible to start a weekly talking newspaper in Pendle, Lancashire, for the blind and visually impaired. From there, Pendle Voice was born, and the new charity was allowed to use the corner of the technician’s workshop at Nelson & Colne College for recording the audio from the newspapers onto cassettes.

We met with Edwina Yates, Chairman of Pendle Voice. Edwina was a school business manager at Fisher More High School in Colne, and began volunteering for Pendle Voice after she retired.

“When Pendle Voice was born the Principal of Nelson & Colne College at the time, Mr David Moore was a Trustee along with Mr Noel Wild, then editor of the Nelson Leader & Colne Times and Mr Fred Bate of ID (Packaging) Ltd. There were also several representatives from the council involved with Pendle Voice too. One gentleman involved was Alan Sadler, he became the Chairman for 37 years until he passed away in 2012,” said Edwina. “Before I worked at Fisher More, I worked with Alan at St Paul’s Primary School in Nelson, that’s how I heard about Pendle Voice because Alan talked about it a lot, this place was his baby, so I decided to volunteer as a reader.”

A volunteer, Averil Astin, stepped into the Chairman role after Alan passed away, and indeed, saved Pendle Voice from closure. She was the Chairman for the next nine years until Edwina took over.

For many years, recordings were made on cassette tapes and were distributed by two volunteers on a tandem whizzing around the streets of Pendle. The rider on the rear seat of the tandem was David Blezard, a visually impaired man himself.

“They all had to be erased before they could re-record. Eventually, cassettes were replaced with memory sticks and USB sticks, and also people can now listen from the internet through British Wireless for the Blind Fund. Our recordings can be heard through Alexa, but that’s in its youth because of our demographics, elderly people aren’t really interested in using that! I think it will eventually change over time but for now, I think the listeners really look forward to hearing the sticks dropping through their letter box.”

Growing up in Nelson herself, Edwina took us on a tour of the building, what looks like a house from the outside, is in fact a studio. A loyal listener, Gladys Turner, left specific instructions in her will to offer her home, 169 Smith Street, to Pendle Voice and in 1982, Pendle Voice moved to its permanent home which was adapted to provide recording facilities and an administrative base!

Edwina took Northern Life on a tour around the studio. “It’s sound proofed too! There’s enough room for two people to record at once, but I prefer reading alone. Our volunteers do around half a day a month, or once a week, the recordings are 90 minutes each. We are on the lookout for a new volunteer to read for us too!” As a loyal Northern Life reader, Edwina thought what better than to record our magazine to the listeners, as the stories were ideal for the local Lancastrians!

THE LISTENERS REALLY LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING THE STICKS DROPPING THROUGH THEIR LETTER BOX

“At first we did a trial reading and picked up a local copy from Booths in Barrowford and read it for our local paper listeners. There was enough material in there to split it between two months listening!” laughed Edwina. “We read out other magazines too, and local newspapers. Pendle Voice is free for anyone that lives in Pendle, if you’re not in Pendle we ask for a £10 charge. However, people from other areas usually have their own charity in their town. As the organisation increased in size, so did the range of publications that were produced.

Talking Newspapers were in their infancy in the mid 1970s and Pendle Voice was able to capitalise on its early involvement, gaining recording permission from main publishing bodies, as well as the local news publications. Consequently, we offer, on a weekly basis, everything from Sunday People through to Woman’s Weekly.”

As a charity, Pendle Voice are entirely dependent on donations and in 2022 received £1,000 from the Pennine Credit Community Union and a further £500 from the local men’s Darts League. They use funds like these to maintain their premises and to purchase the equipment they provide for the listeners. “We spend time visiting people in their homes to show them how to use the equipment, there’s 25 of us volunteering currently.” The volunteers do a variety of roles – recording, admin, IT and publicity. Most recordings take place at the studio on Smith Street but some readers record from their own homes. When Covid hit people started working from home and many people remain doing so, the power of the internet!

In the early days of Pendle Voice, there were approximately 800 listeners, some tapes were even sent overseas to Australia. Currently there are around 250 listeners, however there are still around 4,500 Pendle residents who are registered blind, yet there are virtually no facilities for them.

At its heart though, Pendle Voice is about meeting the needs of its listeners, providing a humble and valuable service thanks to the group of enthusiastic volunteers. Northern Life is honoured to be listened to by the folk of Pendle!

To volunteer or get in contact with Pendle Voice please email pendle.voice@googlemail.com

NorthernLife 105 Autumn 2022