Citizen at 40: Radford keeps finger on pulse of Londesborough

BY SCOTT STEPHENSON

Sometimes, a correspondent for The Citizen is giving a voice to their community.

 

Brenda Radford has been covering life in Londesborough for the paper for 25 years, and she finally wants to set the record straight. “Properly, it’s spelled L-O-N-D-E-S-B-O-R-O-U-G-H. I think people just wanted to shorten it up. When they put up the road signs up at the main intersection of Londesborough, they didn’t have room on the sign… I mean, the sign only has so much length, and so they shortened it to the ‘O’… but the formal government post-office one is -ough,” she explained with finality. “It has always been a neat little village. Bigger than some, smaller than others, but Londesborough has always had that ‘glad you’re here’ kind of feeling. I hope that’s what I send along to other people when I write,” she added. “My husband, John, lived there all his life - until our move to Blyth 4 years ago. Of course, I’d been there all the time we were married. There was a lot of family in the area. I guess it was that closeness - I know everybody. That makes it easier to write.”

 

As the dawn of a new millennium approached, Brenda was looking for a new mental challenge. When longtime-Londesborough correspondent June Fothergill passed away suddenly in 1999, she decided to take on the role. Her first job was writing a suitable remembrance for her predecessor, who’d spent many years covering community news for The Citizen. Brenda must have done Fothergill’s legacy justice, because the paper asked her to keep on writing about all things Londesborough.

 

In 1999, the looming spectre of amalgamation was right around the corner. Brenda was determined that the place she called home would not be forgotten in the process. “I didn’t want Londesborough to lose all of its identity… so I thought, if I can do something to make people aware that we’re still here, and we’re still more or less content to be here, and the people know what’s happening in the little village of Londesborough, that would be fine by me. So that’s why I started doing it, really,” she explained.

 

For her, a correspondent’s column has always been about keeping neighbours connected. “I like doing it because I’m thinking, ‘Okay, so that person doesn’t know this has happened to that person. And maybe that it’s to keep the neighbours aware of each other and what’s happening with them,” Brenda said. “So if somebody has a sister who passes away and they don’t know that, then they can go in and have coffee or whatever. But village life has changed over the 25 or so years that I’ve been doing this.”
In those early years, Brenda found she had plenty to write about. “There were so many little groups or organizations in Londesborough that had meetings that I could cover and say, ‘Okay, this happened - maybe you’d like to go to the next one, because this or that speaker is coming.’”

 

Reporting on happenings at Hullett Central Public School has been a fun and interesting part of village news, said Brenda. She likes to think it helps to bridge the gap between generations, giving them things to talk about together and to keep the community involved.

 

These days, community news can be harder to come by. “People don’t make a habit of calling me to let me know what’s happening,” she admitted. “I feel like now I’m not merely reporting on events in Londesborough because there aren’t as many. I feel more like I’m doing an editorial column, and I find that hard, because you don’t need another editorial voice. You need what it’s meant to be - the news of Londesborough. So sometimes I’m struggling to find meaningful content.”

 

She’s noticed a shift in people since the pandemic. “It has changed since COVID. People have withdrawn a little bit more. They’re not willing to share as much. It’s funny - I need to be at things in order to cover them now, whereas before, people would bring me that news,” she pointed out.

 

When she first began, her process looked very different. “When I started doing this job, it was all handwritten. I delivered it,” she recalled. “I was delivering mine, handwritten, because I didn’t type. Then eventually the kids got me started with a computer. I was putting it on a USB stick. Every week then I would take it to work, and my son would e-mail it through to The Citizen. Now I do that myself. But I’m still doing it by e-mail.”

 

She also writes about the weather now and then, though she admits it’s not her strongest inspiration. “I do write about the weather. I say, ‘You know, terrible day,’ and I find the winter long, that kind of thing; but no, I can’t say a sunny day inspires me.” 
Her appreciation for The Citizen as an institution runs deep. “I’d hate it terribly if we lost these little papers,” she confided. “I wouldn’t say it’s changed a whole lot over the years - and to me, that’s a good thing.”

 

Brenda has spent 25 years with The Citizen, covering everything from cheerful community updates to sombre announcements. Even sharing sad news, she believes, is part of helping the community care for its own. “It lets members of the community know where their kindness may be appreciated, whether it be a casserole or a helping hand,” she said.

 

Even though she no longer lives in Londesborough, Brenda is still diligently reporting local stories. As a correspondent, she sees her role as acting as a gentle antidote to the noise of the wider world. “We get caught up in all that other stuff - world news, provincial news… the horrible stuff,” she pointed out. “Hopefully the Londesborough news is a little bit more cheery, down-home.”