After 17 years, Swale's Talking Newspaper has folded. Bel Austen was there to witness the final edition...

A hand goes up. Silence. The microphone is switched off.

Gwen Croally, editor and recording engineer, signals the week’s Swale Talking Newspaper is now safely recorded on a memory stick and is ready to be posted to the offices of the Kent Association for the Blind in Maidstone.

From there it will be sent, free of charge, to the blind and partially-sighted across Swale covering Sittingbourne and the Isle of Sheppey.

In Gwen’s lounge “studio” in Wards Hill Road, Minster, four volunteer newsreaders peel off cuttings from notice boards and remove the thick blanket which was used to muffle every cough or sharp intake of breath during recording.

This had been the pattern every Thursday afternoon since 2005. But on March 24 it was for the last time. News that the service was being discontinued came as a shock to the volunteers.

Advances in other technology had meant fewer were signing up to the service.

“We are all sad it is the end of an era,” admitted Gwen, a retired teacher.

She became involved as a reader in 1993 at the home of David and Greta Bright and then moved bases when Geoff and Betty Keralfy’s took over. When they moved, she settled the studio in her own home.

The newspaper was launched on Sheppey around 1970, first from the Island's old hospital and then the former Sheppey School.

When venues changed, volunteers ended up recording in their own homes. Its long-running success stemmed from pioneers like the late Ken Taylor, David and Greta Bright and the Keralfys.

Sheppey Round Tablers also played their part with a donation to upgrade equipment.

The reading teams and engineers have changed over the years. On Sheppey there are 16 enthusiasts who read regularly and up to nine reserves. Gwen, 92, also read at times, as well as editing.

The job began on Wednesdays when the Sheerness Times Guardian and sister paper the Sittingbourne News were published. Gwen scrutinised both before selecting articles she considered would interest listeners.

“At first I was wary of including hard news stories but I was told listeners wanted to be reliably informed of everything going on in their areas. And I made careful checks a picture wasn’t relied on to tell a story,” she explained.

Then began the process of cutting out the stories and sticking them onto boards. To have read directly from the papers was impractical because it created too much rustling.

In preparation for each session a table was covered with the thick blanket and lamps, glasses of water, lozenges for tickly throats, pencils, spectacle cleaners and magnifying glasses were produced to ensure the recordings would be gremlin free.

For the readers it was a scan through to check pronunciation - some names and places being unusually spelt could cause a stumble or a fit of the giggles and halt recording.

'We always introduced ourselves before reading our first stories'

“Sadly all is past tense now,” said Gwen.

“We have all enjoyed our contribution to keeping the visually impaired in touch with local news. We always introduced ourselves before reading our first stories as we have differing accents and a mix of male and female voices which we hoped made for easy, friendly listening.

“Some while ago, in a social situation the late Cathy Lewis was asked if she was a reader for the newspaper. She answered in the affirmative and was told her voice was recognised. It was good to know.”

There are 13 locations across Kent and more than 300 volunteers involved with the Talking Newspaper.