The Sheffield Star, The Yorkshire Post, and the weekly Sheffield Telegraph.

1. Always make sure that lighting up times are accurate. It appears nightly in the Star. Some listeners use it as a security measure for adjusting house lights and curtains.

2. Listeners have very little interest in Sport, unless it concerns such things as Bowling for the Blind.

3. Peter Harvey is very popular, but sometimes his feature stories are not appropriate.

4. Some listeners are not keen on “Council Affairs”, but we are a news tape and they must be included, but not overdone.

5. Market research items are sometimes over burdened with a list of facts and figures. If possible leave out.

6. Stories about crime could easily fill the tape, but we do not want to cause listeners to be disheartened and depressed. Keep it to a minimum e.g. three stories. Use your discretion and where possible use crime stories that could possibly benefit our listeners, e.g. where bogus callers are involved. Remember radio and television also highlight crime, enough is enough !

7. Bear in mind which age group covers the majority of our listeners – they are not interested in the latest Pop Stars. Nostalgia goes down well with our listeners, sometimes the “Now and Then” column in the Star is very useful.

8. Stories relevant to Blind and Visually Impaired do not have to be local to be of interest. These are sometimes found in the Yorkshire Post.

9. Try to lighten the load with some humour, again not restricted to the Sheffield district.

10. A lot of news is duplicated in the Yorkshire Post, but it does have fresh news for our area - AND it is better grammar !

11. A limit of three minutes per item is about right, if necessary a longer story can be split between two readers and saying “over to Jack” helps to identify our readers, some of whom are better suited to read a particular item. This ,of course, means knowing beforehand the order of play.

12. Towards the end of the year, regularly include “thank you” for donations as this serves as a reminder to our listeners that we no longer charge a subscription, and ask for cheques and postal orders to be made out to Sheffield Talking News to avoid them going astray.

13. Danger words to avoid – “today” – “tomorrow” – “last night” . Including individual ages unnecessarily to be eradicated if irrelevant (try to say that with no teeth)

14. Acknowledgement of any listeners’ message most important, check with hatch and dispatch people and editors’ communication vehicle ( the zip case on the shelf)

15. Leave spare items with readers just in case there is a rare occasion of shortage of material.

16. The press has had an overfill of proposed planning and building, some referring to years ahead – some rationing required.

17. And when all is said and done – we are not magicians who could invent what our tapes contain – we are limited by the material at our disposal – but many people do depend on us to bridge the gap of “blindness”