‘Local Newspaper Week’ is when this newspaper, still family-owned and totally independent, renews its pledge to support this town and its adjacent villages and to ensure that our readers can rely on us to speak up when the need arises.

Even more important it is a time when we can thank you, our readers and advertisers, for all you have done for our community over the past year, and years. Your efforts are always greatly appreciated and we want you to know we are right behind you.

We are most fortunate in being able to say that throughout this period of austerity our readers and our traders have continued to support our town and our charities.

Local businesses rely so much on local support and we are glad to say that, once again, this has consistently been given.

Our local charities as well as our traders will be very glad indeed if we really are through the worst.

ANDREW ADAMSON,

GENERAL MANAGER AT TENBY OBSERVER

Helping to make a difference for the past 166 years

For the past 166 years the Tenby Observer has been part of a proud tradition of local newspapers which is set to be celebrated next week as part of Journalism Matters week. The week celebrates the vital role played by the local press and the importance trusted journalism which is at the heart of the Tenby Observer. When it was first published in 1853 the Observer’s founder Richard Mason aimed to keep the local population abreast of what was going on in their town - and today we aim to do exactly the same.

Week in, week out, without fail, the Observer keeps you up to date with the news that matters to you most - holding politicians to account, making sure your taxes are put to the best use, publicising your campaigns, local events, fundraising and other happenings, your good news, your bad news, sport, and what’s on – we are your local news service and are committed to being your eyes and ears and your champions.

In short, if it happens in Tenby and surrounding areas we want to know about it because what is going in our local communities has the greatest impact on the lives of ourselves and our families - and as local reporters most of us live in the area too, so if it’s important to you, its important to us.

The Observer is part of the Tindle Newspaper group, which above all else makes being local and making a difference to the lives of its readers and the business community a priority - it may just be a co-incidence that the top three town’s recently voted the happiest in Britain, all boast Tindle newspapers, we like to think that it’s not!

As well as its print editions, the Observer has a website giving you up-to-the-minute news 24 hours a day, along with busy Facebook and Twitter pages. Investing in print and digital journalism is important to the Tenby Observer and Tindle Newspapers and we take our responsibility to our readers very seriously.

We hope you know you can rely on the Observer to keep you up to date with is happening locally, and nationally where it affects you, and always being there to fight your corner.

With the growth of fake news, it has never been more important to have trust in what you are reading and we remain firm in our aim of providing our readers with the facts free of prejudice or bias.

And that is where local newspapers like the Observer are so important. Research shows increasingly that people are becoming increasingly connected to their local community. People are spending more time and money locally and are more positive about key issues at a local level. And trusted local media prompts people to have a sense of pride in the area they live.

THE STORY OF THE TENBY OBSERVER

It’s been told many times before, but there’s no harm in telling it again.

The story of the Tenby Observer - Pembrokeshire’s oldest newspaper and a pioneer of press freedom - has been a long and colourful one... sometimes even contentious.

It has been told many times in the past, but we feel it is one worth retelling in Local Newspaper Week and also in what is our 166th year.

On August 13, 1853, Richard Mason produced the first issue of the paper under the title of The Tenby Observer and List of Visitors. He had, in fact, printed a single sheet of foolscap folio size (13 inches by eight inches) in the previous week (August 7) under the title The Tenby List of Visitors.

This was no more than the name implied, for it contained only the names of the people visiting the town, together with a few advertisements, mainly of books on sale in Mason’s shop in High Street (the premises now occupied by Tesco Express).

No local news appeared in this preliminary sheet. It was not until the following week that Richard Mason seems to have conceived the idea of a local newspaper and so, on August 13, 1853, he gave his creation a name - one that has now become a household name in Tenby and its neighbourhood.

PRESS FREEDOM BATTLE

Since that time, the Observer has been published continuously, but not without incident. It has fought several traumatic battles. Most notable was its famous fight for press freedom, a protracted legal battle which eventually resulted in the Admission of the Press to Meetings Act being placed on the Statute Book in 1908.

CRISIS

Perhaps the worst crisis the Tenby Observer faced was when it announced its own closure over 40 years ago in March 1978.

The decision to close had only been made after a long struggle to obtain supplies of newsprint, ink, plates and all the many weekly requirements of a newspaper. Cash had run out and the then current shareholders in 1978 were unable to meet the proper demands of the creditors.

News of its death appeared in the Daily Telegraph and that is when Ray Tindle first became aware of its plight.

After a quick call to the Receivers, who said that the then Editor Arthur Ormond and some of his colleagues were still there clearing up, Sir Ray came to Tenby and asked the remaining staff, including Neil Dickinson, today’s Editor, if they would like to have another try at keeping the paper going if he were to buy it that day. They at once, to a man, volunteered to bring it out that same week, even though their numbers were well down on the normal complement, and they only had a little over two days in which to do a week’s work.

Led by Arthur Ormond, they produced - on time - a splendid issue on March 17 of that year, as they have done every week since. Thus the paper never missed an issue. The Observer returned to profitability after Ray Tindle changed the editorial coverage area, concentrating on strictly local community news. The paper has now been viable for the past 41 years.

Sir Ray was knighted by HRH the Prince of Wales for his services to the newspaper industry. After taking the reins of the Observer on its resuscitation in 1978, he saw the paper go from strength to strength, in fact, to such an excellent extent that, together with its sister paper the Narberth and Whitland Observer (established 1906), circulation soon more than doubled from 3,700 to around 8,000 copies per week - a rare phenomenon these days!

LATEST TECHNOLOGY

The Observer staff use the latest computer technology to produce the paper, which is currently printed by Trinity Mirror Printing, Birmingham.

Indeed, only last year IT experts were at their Warren Street offices to install brand new systems to keep up with the ever-changing world of modern technology.

Social media now also plays a major role in its daily life, and as well as the newspaper itself, it has its own website, Facebook page and Twitter and Instagram accounts.

The Narberth and Whitland Observer, as the title suggests, covers neighbouring communities.

Pembroke and Pembroke Dock Observer

July 2011 saw the launch of the Pembroke and Pembroke Dock Observer, a brand new edition of the ’paper covering that particular area.

That, too, is now well established and is proving popular with its readers.

ONE OF THE FEW

The Tenby Observer is proud of having served the community for 166 years and it is proud of being one of the very few remaining family-owned independent papers.