The news as it used to be

The news as it used to be

My late parents were newsagents for Sunday papers for 46 years and, as children, we all had our own little paper round.

My mother kept one particular room for the papers, which we called the shop.

I can still see those papers laid out on the table. The back row was: News of the World, The People, The Sunday Pictorial, The Sunday Graphic, The Observer and the Times. The front row was: The Sunday Dispatch, The Reynolds News and the Sunday Express. Newspapers were 2d and the Times and Observer 6d.

I have a copy of the News of the World, dated 1870 and quite different from the paper we buy today. One item in it is about two brothers, one 16 and the other six, who were killed on the railway line between Liskeard and Looe. The paper is rather yellow but still makes interesting reading.

JOYCE PATON

Callington