As part of Barrow Voice 50th year, previous editor, Gaynor Barton, remembers her time as editor.

When Frances Thompson and Judith Rodgers asked me to take over editing the magazine they said it wasn’t really an awful lot of work. So, I did. I’d retired and had the time. However, I soon learnt that I had so much to get to grips with it was more like a full-time job!  But it was fascinating and I very much enjoyed those hectic seven years.

I was lucky in that there was an established Barrow Voice team in place which included core members such as Val Gillings, Ginny Willcocks and John Nurse, as well as Judith Rodgers, and Craig Johnstone of the design team at ‘Mulberry Square’. Lindsay Ord joined the team shortly after. I carried on many of the old ways; I was never a radical new broom, although I did want to improve the quality of the photographs by getting people to take more action shots. Another change I made was to suggest article lengths at editorial meetings by giving maximum word counts. This meant that I had an idea of how much space each article would take and thus prevent the panic that arose on Deadline Day when I was sure I had too few pages for the amount of material flowing in. During those years the magazine varied between 32 and 36 pages and even though it was often 36, I was always pushed for space.

In 2013 it was easier to take photos of children in public spaces without first getting permission from their parents. Children were more often in the magazine in those days. For example, in autumn 2015 there’s a picture of a young girl riding her horse, a cob, at the Betty Henser’s Lane Gypsy Horse Fair – no permission from her parents and no saddle! It’s still legal to take photos of children in public spaces today, as long as they’re not indecent, only the feeling now is that you should ask permission first to avoid trouble.

Although I’d lived in the village since 1999, and been writing for the magazine for six years, my understanding of the place and the people was immensely deepened by taking over the editorship. I loved interviewing people; the artists, licensees, parish councillors, chefs, short-story winners, shop owners, novelists, footballers, open water swimmers, ‘Open Gardens’ homeowners, street market craft sellers, vicars, River Soar fishermen, Murder Mystery potential victims and many, many more.  Sometimes an interview led to greater things. This happened after interviewing a village postman, Martin Wigmore, for an article, as later he went on to write a book, ‘Every Letter tells a Story; A Rural Postman’s Tale’ which was great. Interviewing officialdom was trickier. When the Grove Lane railway bridge collapsed in August 2016 getting details of when the repairs would finally be finished was nigh impossible. I tried various sources, including interviewing an engineer in his car at the site one bitterly cold day. I didn’t get anywhere but I remember he had heated seats and steering wheel and being very impressed!

Highlights - were there any highlights? Oh yes definitely. The greatest was obtaining press passes in March 2015 to attend a ceremony at Bosworth Field which was part of the reinterment of Richard III. John Nurse and I were there, high above the hoi-polloi on a deck, squashed next to the BBC, ITV, Sky and the rest of the world’s press, with a super view of everything going on around us. Another was the day Leicester City won the Premiership in May 2016. I spent it in The Three Crowns and what a celebration there was that night!  Sadly, it was then I discovered that getting crystal clear images of people jumping up and down in a packed pub was too much for my camera.

My hardest time as editor was during Covid. As we couldn’t deliver the print version of Summer 2020, we went online. This version had a rolling format so contributors could send in articles day and night and constantly update them. The work was never ending and although I had a lot of support, I still found being online much more of a strain.

Thankfully we went back to print for Autumn 2020. By then I’d asked Karisa to take over my role and to my great delight she did. The Barrow Voice story could continue with an editor with plenty of new ideas and infinitely better IT skills. Thank you, Karisa.

Gaynor Barton