High Halstow Times

The History of the High Halstow Times

It seemed fitting with May Smitherman finally deciding to retire from delivering the HHT that information first provided by Margaret Bufford for the Parish Appraisal was put to print in respect of the beginning of the High Halstow Times

In 1966 it was thought it would be a good idea to have a village newssheet, so the High Halstow Times was born. It was very different in those days, just two sides of a single sheet of paper.

The first editor was Fred Osenton assisted by Peter Thompson, they found a Roneo Duplicator (believed it had been found in the roof space of the Village Hall). The machinery was old and printing could be a messy business. After printing it was taken to a distributor who made it up into bundles and then delivered it around the village to the many people who had volunteered to deliver it around the village (some things just never change)

Rachel Lapthorn was the next editor, and when Margaret Bufford took over from Rachel she was greatly assisted by Stephen Carey who did the printing for many years. Pat Scott then became the next editor.

When Margaret Church became editor it all changed. It increased in size and with the aid of the computer became more sophisticated. Kate Harvey was the next editor and when she moved this brought us to Lynne Duncombe.

We then had Carl Mitchell who did a sterling job for over 11 years but resigned in the Summer of 2017. After a stringent exercise of costings from other printing companies, Carl, who now works with Smart Print Services is still responsible for the printing.

Finally we have the latest editor, Linda Atkinson, who is also responsible for collating the information and then sending to Natalie to be loaded on to up to date software. The publication is usually 16 pages these days but this is monitored due to the high cost of printing.

The High Halstow Times was originally funded by the Village Hall Committee but this responsibility is now with the Parish Council.

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