Celebrating 50 years of Chichester Area Talking News

For chairman Ken Pritchard, the anniversary – for which a busy programme of events is planned – is the perfect moment to reflect on five decades of achievement, on the importance of the service and on the great team of people he is delighted to work with.

“It is certainly a big achievement,” Ken says. “It is a charity run entirely by volunteers. We have no paid staff, but the people that volunteer with the charity show some of the best commitment that I have seen in a long time either in employment or in voluntary work. They really are quite wonderful people. They give their time and they do it so willingly and happily.

“Their main purpose with CaTN is to ensure that our listeners have got the best possible news and magazine programmes and that if they have any sense of isolation then those feelings are diminished by what we do. People say that when they hear our red or yellow wallets (containing the latest programmes on a memory stick) coming through the letterbox, then it always feels like friends coming to visit. I've heard that sentiment at least half a dozen times since I have been chairman.

“50 years ago on December 5 1975 the first recording was made on a cassette that had to be taken to The News in Portsmouth to be copied and it was then distributed to the 42 listeners we had at that time. Now we are approaching 280 to 290 listeners. We are one of the largest Talking News organisations in the country and definitely one of the best!

“I joined about four years ago. The former chairman Richard Bunker was saying to me that he worked with a wonderful committee and he said why didn't I come along to meet them so I did and I met these wonderful people. But then within a matter of months he had retired and had sidewinded me into becoming the chairman!”

Since then a great deal of the satisfaction has been through the lovely feedback from listeners: “We have an AGM every year which we turn into a social event. We do a lunch for our listeners every year and we do a lunch for our team of volunteers every year. And when someone comes up to me and puts a hand on my shoulder and says that they recognise my voice, then it is just wonderful. I know I'm Welsh and I know I'm emotional but you can really feel the emotion coming up!

“And then we have the trustees and volunteers and whenever I say there is an issue with something or other, they simply say ‘Don't worry. We can resolve that.’ There is always a flurry of ‘Oh, that's no problem. We can sort that.’ I have led quite large teams in the past but I've had nothing like this. People that volunteer are people who want to do it rather than people who are having to do something to earn a pay cheque but the people that we have at Talking News really are the best. I can honestly say I've never heard anyone say anything mildly derogatory or unpleasant about anyone or about the organisation, and that is really remarkable.

“It was started by a woman called Eileen Brown. From what I understand she had been giving lessons to blind golfers and she learned about the Talking News organisation somehow. She spoke to Graham Brooks (then editor of the Chichester Observer) and Graham organised the first proper broadcast back in 1975. Graham joined and began to bring his journalistic experience to bear. And some of the structures that we adopted – and that other organisations always want to copy from us – are structures that Graham put in place back then, like a production team and a producer and copyists. When our listeners had listened to the cassettes, they would return them to our office and a group of people would take the old recordings and clean up the cassettes and put the new recordings on the cassettes. Now we use memory sticks.”

Half a century after the start, the Chichester Observer still makes up around 90 per cent of the content, for which Ken says a number of criteria have to be borne in mind: “We have to remember that our listeners are blind or partially sighted. There's no point saying ‘Visit Kew Gardens! The flowers are lovely at this time of year!’ We also have to remember that a number of our listeners are elderly so we make sure that the music that we use to link our tracks is quite familiar pieces from Radio 2 or from the Forces Network. We also try to include news items from across our area which stretches almost to the Surrey border and from Emsworth in the west through to Littlehampton in the east. We try to include items that are local to all of those areas.”

The Golden Jubilee Year 2025 will see a number of events and social occasions .

Thursday, May 1– touch and audio-described tour of Amberley Museum for up to 20, ending with tea and cake. Coach from Chichester.

Sunday, May 18 – Team lunch, Fishbourne Village Hall.

May/June– behind the scenes tour of Chichester Festival Theatre for up to 30, including backstage, make-up, costumes, wigs, dressing rooms and stage machinery.

Friday, June 20– Assembly Room, a CaTN 50th Celebration programme as part of the Festival of Chichester.

Saturday, June 21– Talking News Federation South East Area conference for TN organisations.

Saturday, June 28 – City Council Gala Day in Priory Park – promotional event.

Saturday, July 12 – Bosham Village Fete, Manor House – promotional event.

Thursday, September 11 – vision sight loss support and promotional event, Midhurst Methodist Church Hall.

December 5 – Grand Christmas Social to close the 1975-2025 celebrations: lunch with drinks, music and entertainment.