THIS district has had a number of newspapers but none has existed as long as the Greenock Telegraph, which started publication in 1857.

The other day, a gentleman handed in at the Telegraph’s front office a copy of a now-defunct local weekly newspaper discovered during a house clearance.

It is an edition of The Greenock Pictorial published on October 3, 1956.

Greenock Telegraph:

As the title suggests, photographs featured prominently in the four-page publication.

Its front page from the aforementioned date carries no fewer than six wedding photographs.

Also on the front page is the accompanying image of Mrs S King receiving an award for 15 years’ service with the ABC Regal cinema.

Making the presentation on behalf of the company’s board of directors is Mr R V Bluer. The resident manager, Mr William Laurie, is shown on the extreme left at an informal gathering of staff.

Mrs King did not have to travel far to get to work as the former cinema was in West Blackhall Street and she lived at 6 West Stewart Street.

My former colleague Angela Taylor, who was the Telegraph’s chief sub-editor until retiring in 2002, started her journalistic career with the Pictorial.

It was owned by the McDonald Press, and printed and published in Johnstone.

Angela joined the paper in 1959 and was its only Greenock-based employee, working from home as it did not have an office in the town.

She travelled to Johnstone twice a week for four years before becoming a reporter with the Ayrshire Post.