Kingsbridge Talking Newspapers has been providing news from the Gazette, Totnes Times and Dartmouth Chronicle to an eager audience of blind and partially sighted listeners since August 1981. The service has around 40 listeners who receive their weekly bulletin on a USB stick in the post.

The recordings are made every Thursday afternoon in their studio in the heart of Kings Cinema in Kingsbridge for which they pay a peppercorn rent plus electricity and the newspapers are supplied free of charge.

Senior Trustee and Secretary David Stone got involved after going with his wife to sing at their 30th birthday celebration at Charleton Village Hall. He says: ‘‘The total number of volunteers we have got is 31 and probably about 20 of those are readers.

‘‘Each week we have three readers of which one is the presenter.

‘‘We’ve got around four recording technicians, although we could do with a couple more, and we have others who send out the recordings.

‘‘Each story is recorded on a separate track so people can skip through backwards and forwards.

For a long time the group have been surviving off the interest from legacies so they don’t have to do any fundraising.

Around 2008 Kingsbridge Talking Newspapers switched over from their old system of cassettes which was very time consuming as they had to be copied in real time but bwe can now make 15 USB copies in 30 seconds.

David continued: ‘‘With the USB sticks when we send them out we include a stamped addressed pouch for listeners to send them back in and if we don’t receive them back we will send out up to another two pouches in the following two weeks before getting in touch to make sure the person is alright.

‘‘Most people are pretty good at returning the USB’s to us. We post them out on Thursday evening.

Nicola Fox is another of the volunteer presenters and readers. She said: ‘‘I’ve been involved in it almost since it started when I was a member of the Rotaract Club in Kingsbridge and one of our projects was to take tape machines round to the initial customers.

Nicola continued: ‘‘I just enjoy presenting the paper and giving people the opportunity to hear the news.

‘‘We do get a certain abount of feedback. I’ve had people who say they recognise my voice even if they don’t actually know me.’’

For more information contact David on 01548 580164.