Rosie Sanderson
London Colney News celebrates its 100th edition this quarter. It began life in 1984 when the London Colney Parish Council decided to emulate Colney Heath and other nearby villages by producing a village magazine. Parish Councillor Rosie Sanderson volunteered to have a go, ably assisted by Councillor Eileen Francis. They brought the first edition to press in early 1984. Contributions from others included Robin Cooper and David Ansell, who continues to produce illustrations.
Small Beginnings
That first magazine stretched to only eight sides, and had a black and white cover. Subsequently the soon to be familiar yellow cover was adopted, and now a much improved, multi colour version is produced. In the early days technology only stretched to printing from a computer and then cutting and pasting the pages and individual articles and adverts. The paste up often continued late into the night in order to get to the printers by their deadline. A week was required for printing, before the boxes of magazines had to be collected and taken to the distribution agents, which initially was sited on an industrial estate in North London. The magazine was distributed with a local free paper for many years, with voluntary help being needed to ensure delivery to the more outlying parts of London Colney. The local Scouts took over delivery in the mid 1990s.
Takeover
I continued to edit and produce the magazine until 1995 when Maria Aguado and Jane Message took over as lead editors, assisted by a team of volunteers, Julie Bradshaw, David Ansell and Nigel Blandford. Since then, many different people have given their time to editing and distributing - Ken Peak, Betty Sutherland, Kathy and Ian Hider.
The Editorial Committee now consists of Maria Aguado (Layout, articles and advertising), ‘Dreda Gordon and Mary Crouch (Councillors with final decision over content) and Gillian Patschinsky (Parish Clerk).
The magazine has always covered part of its costs by advertising, the remainder being paid for by London Colney Parish Council. All work done by the editors, contributors and other helpers has always been voluntary.