50-year history of a town goes under hammer

AN incredible collection of old newspapers are going under the hammer.

Old news is becoming new news through the Richard Winterton auctions sale this Thursday, at Tamworth

Auction Rooms. The bound copies of our sister paper, the Tamworth Herald, span from 1917 to 1968.

“It is a jaw-dropping insight into the day-to-day lives of people in Tamworth during one of the most fundamental periods of change in history,” said Robert French, ephemera specialist at Richard Winterton.

“From the way adverts are pitched to the details included in the editorial and the way the editions were put together, these newspapers are a wonderful resource for local historians and we expect a huge amount of interest.

“All the way throughout the war, local issues continued to make up the majority of the editorial.”

Following the outbreak of war, the 1939 editions covered the first child evacuees arriving in Tamworth from West Bromwich, plus news of theatre and cinema closures, the setting up of the Food Control Committee and publication of the Retail Coal Price Order List.

By 1940 the Herald was running articles on Air Raid Precaution (ARP) items, food rationing, issuing of gas masks, blackouts – and naming offenders not abiding the blackout.

1941 included petty racketeering and theft, with offenders named, as well as the first reports of POWs and individuals killed or missing in action.

In 1942 there was a report of a Fazeley man in action at Dieppe, plus patriotic propaganda from Tamworth Gaslight and Coke Company and Tamworth District Electric Supply Company.

The 1943 editions include a 1942 retrospective with a roll of honour of all the local men killed in that year plus reports of military bravery awards and promotions,” added Mr French.

Articles in 1944 include a piece about an Alvecote seaman aboard HMS Belfast at the sinking of the Scharnhorst Battleship, two Amington brothers killed in action and Tamworth brothers meeting in India having being apart for 20 years.

1945 articles include prisoners of war, men killed in action and, of course, VE Day.

The archive is expected to fetch between £2,000 and £3,000. The sale also features more than 100 lots of cricket books including complete runs of Wisden, a variety of year books and ephemera from cricket counties.