The life of a small pair of villages has always included close communication and collaboration between residents. For some that would take the form of “Village Gossip”, but there was always a desire, and benefit, of making sure villagers were suitably informed.
For many years village communication has been aided by the Parish Magazine – from back in the nineteenth century through to the Village Newsletter still published in print form today.
In the early days it was known as the Church Lawford and Kings Newnham Parish Magazine – an example of the 1898 version can be found here, where it can be seen there are snippets of news on a range of topics, as well as information on Church Events.
It is not too clear what form the magazine took during the inter-war period (there is always a need to find copies from this era), but by 1964 when the new school opened, the magazine was more in the form of a letter from the Vicar. A copy of that newsletter is here.
By 1970 the Village Magazine was helping with the campaign regarding the school being downgraded to First School Status – the December 1970 version is here.
As the Magazine reaches contemporary times it is more difficult to publish examples due to current rules and regulations. A revamped version was launched in the late 1970s by Ken Butler, and the closely typed narrow-margined foolscap version proved a major success under the editorial control of John Forsyth, with assistance of a team of reporters from both villages – a sample from 1978 is here. When the Forsyth’s moved away in 1985 the newsletter became even more of a “team-effort”, with Mary Happs in the editor role for a number of years, and then Sylvia Lindoe picked up the reins in the late 1990’s and has edited the magazine, 10 copies per year for over 25 years.
The latest Village Newsletters can be found here.
The Research Section of this archive acts as storage for back Issues of the Village Newsletter, with a contiguous set from 1980 to the current issue, as well as a few earlier ones. If you have access to copies of village newsletters prior to 1980 please let us know via the contact form.