125 years of the Guernsey Press

IT DOES not always pay to be keen.

So when Guernsey Press editor James Falla looked to fully celebrate the 125th anniversary of the creation of the island’s only surviving daily paper, he turned to me – someone he recently suggested had ‘an obsession’ with Guernsey nostalgia.

And so here we are today at the start of fully six months of an in-depth, hopefully very informative and entertaining study of our island, since the Press ran for the first time in the summer of 1897.

It has not stopped since, although the German occupying forces inflicted heavy censorship of what island life was about in those sad, dismal war years of 1940 to 1945.

We have kept going, six days a week, with Christmas and Boxing Day among the only regular annual exceptions, seeing off the challenge of the once successful and fine ‘Star’ paper and in the peak years selling more than 16,000 newspapers daily.

A world of Facebook, the internet and social media makes the job harder by the year, but in general terms Guernsey still loves its news paper and it is proven that while 56% of the adult population read it each day, 82% of islanders over the age of 16 cast their eyes over it at least once per week.

Elsewhere, the larger and more populated islands of the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight go without a daily paper, but Guernsey folk continue to demand a daily service and in recent times we have ventured ever more into digital content, including video and podcasts.

So while I continue to plough my way through the company’s vast story content and deep library of bound newspapers, we urge you to get involved and come forward with your ideas on what were the greatest images and who have been those most important/distinguished islanders.

At the end of this nostalgic trawl through the massive GP story and picture archives, the intention is to publish a standalone supplement telling islanders and anyone who wants to know our in-house story.

That will involve looking at the staff who have made their own headlines and were heavily influential on the development of the paper.

It will chart the advancement of printing technology and have a strong focus on the industries which have dominated island life, namely the stone trade, growing and, now, finance.

We will look at tourism, horticulture, sport and recreation.

We will look at how Guernsey coped with and survived two World Wars including a lengthy occupation.

We will showcase some of the most memorable photographs of island life since 1897.

One area we have opted to steer clear of is murders, of which there have regrettably been too many, and tragic deaths stemming from too many major car crashes, falls on the cliffs and drownings in the bays.

But before all that starts, each week, Monday to Friday, we will be highlighting the 125 greatest islanders, the 125 biggest stories, and the same number of outstanding photographs, each one with its own detailed back story.

Already we have identified which great Press stories will be revisited, but we would welcome public input as to which notable islanders should be featured and the most memorable pictures you have seen adorn the pages of the newspaper.

The 125 great islanders will feature randomly. There will be no countdown as such.

But we would also welcome votes as to who you consider is the greatest islander of the past one-and-a-quarter centuries.

There have been so many distinguished island folk – and when we say islanders, we do not necessarily mean someone who was born here. The only qualification is that the individual lived a significant proportion of their life here.

• Who would you like to be featured in our top 125 greatest islanders? Comment below or email Rob Batiste on rbatiste@guernseypress.com