FROM THE ARCHIVE: SALFORD TALKING NEWSPAPER FOR THE BLIND

Trevor Palmer told us that the company started in 1979 when a blind Salford resident, Marjorie Husband, was on holiday in Torquay when she heard about the Talking Newspaper movement - it was just starting in various parts of the country. 

She came home to ask: why doesn't Salford have its own Talking Newspaper? 

So discussions began, a committee was elected, and pretty soon the first edition of Salford's own Talking News was produced. 

This first issue was recorded in the back bedroom of a committee member's home in Seedley and was sent out to 20 visually disabled citizens. 

Initially the format was to record on cassette tapes, but thanks to modern technology the format is to record onto MP3 via a memory stick. 

Each week a recording is made of local news and the memory stick is sent to the house of the user, they are given a free speaker unit into which the memory stick is inserted and from that they can listen to the news article of their choice. 

Once the person has listened to the news they simply pop it back into a pouch which is provided and send it back, and I am glad to report that the postal charges are waived because the people are visually impaired. 

Over 250 people a week benefit from this service, and at its peak they supplied over 400 people, but due to advances in medical technology, the number has fallen. 

We are also glad to report that Salford Talking Newspapers For The Blind are going to use selected articles from SalfordOnline.com in the future. 

We were really pleased to report on these people because they do a splendid job, free of charge looking after those less fortunate, and they rarely get a mention for their good deeds, hopefully this video will rectify this. 

This article appeared on SalfordOnline on the 8th February 2013 and is reproduced here with the blessings of Mistery of History, Mr Tony Flynn.