In a last week’s post, I recalled one of the rituals of Sunday morning being a trip to the newsagent to pick up a copy of The Sunday Post newspaper. For the uninitiated, this is a Scottish newspaper, founded in 1914 and which, in the late 1960s, was estimated to have a readership of close to three million across Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of northern England. Here’s a picture of the front page from 1960; it looked pretty much the same in the 1970s and 80s when I used to read it:
The Sunday Post was published in Dundee by DC Thomson, which owned a number of newspapers and magazines as well as comics including the Beano and the Dandy. It had a distinctive feel to its content that was quite different to other newspapers at the time.
The paper tended to avoid hard news, though it did include some news and sports coverage that were mostly Scotland-focused. The editorial voice leaned politically towards the Conservative Party, was supportive of the Royal Family, and adopted a folksy, parochial tone. The Sunday Post was best known for its features content, which tended to be nostalgic and/or sentimental. I remember several columns that used to run in the paper every week.
Two columns that I recall purported to be written by actual people but were most likely written by an editorial team, the byline names being pseudonymous characters.
My Week by Francis Gay consisted of six short stories about the character’s encounters during that week, and a poem. There was one story attributed to each day of the week, with the poem featured on Wednesday.
The HON Man travelled around Great Britain, interviewing local people and visiting tourist attractions that were free or cheap to enter (“HON” stood for “Holiday On Nothing”). He was always shown as a cartoon character in the photographs accompanying the columns.
The Doc Replies offered answers to readers’ medical questions and The Queries Man answered questions of a more general nature.
The Sunday Post also featured celebrity interviews, television reviews, personal finance and consumer affairs columns. It would also print stories about ordinary people around Scotland. I remember one article that profiled a typical day in the life of a punk rocker (this was of course in the late 1970s) that described him hoovering his flat, listening to loud records and swapping items of clothing with his friends to create new outfits. Another told the story of a guitarist in a band who had broken his wrist but managed to get through an audition for a record label by the doctor temporarily putting his arm in a bandage instead of a cast – the pain was worth it as the band was signed by the label. I’m obviously remembering these stories because they are music-related. I also remember humorous stories of unlikely coincidences and other happenings that even back then seemed to be of questionable veracity!
Another memorable weekly feature was a piece of short fiction, again usually sentimental or inspiring in nature. The stories covered topics such as a person finding love again after bereavement or friendship coming from an unlikely place. I’ll recount the plot of one story that I remember, to give a flavour of what they were like.
Four men were sharing a hospital ward with only one window. One of the men was a very vocal complainer, soon earning the nickname Groucho from the others. Groucho kept asking why the man by the window (I think his name was Jimmy) deserved to have the best place. He kept insisting that the only fair solution was that they take turns at having their beds placed by the window so they could all enjoy it. The nurses refused to do this, so as a compromise, every day Jimmy described to the others what he could see happening in the park overlooked by the window.
Jimmy would describe the beautiful trees and flowers in the park, the duck pond at its centre and the various people coming and going. On one day he described a man having his hat blown off by the wind and it landing in the duck pond. He recounted the man’s increasingly desperate efforts to get his hat back. On another day he gave a running commentary of a football match between two groups of boys that was just as exciting as a professional match on the radio. Each day, Jimmy kept his room mates interested and amused by the goings on in the park, and even Groucho had to raise a smile.
Eventually the time comes for Jimmy to go home. After Jimmy is discharged, Groucho insists that he gets the bed by the window. Sharing a wry glance between themselves, the nurses move Groucho’s bed. When his room mates ask him what is going on in the park today, Groucho eagerly looks out of the window only to find that it overlooks a blank factory wall and a back alley. Groucho starts to say “But…” when a nurse gives him a meaningful look.
“Well,” says Groucho, “Like Jimmy said, there’s a beautiful park with flowers and trees and a duck pond…”
I cannot write about the Sunday Post without mentioning my favourite part as a child, the pull-out Fun Section. This featured two full-page cartoon strips, The Broons, about a large family living in a tenement flat, and Oor Wullie about the adventures of a young boy and his friends. I remember enjoying these strips tremendously and reading them over and over during the week.
The titles of both of these strips are spelled as they would be pronounced in Scots dialect, The Broons being the equivalent of “The Browns” and Oor Wullie being “Our Willie”, though growing up on Tyneside meant that the Geordie dialect rendered the latter as “Wor Willie”. The dialogue was also written with Scots pronunciation, which made them seem slightly exotic. When I was reading these cartoon strips in the 1970s and 80s it always felt to me that they were set in a previous era, possibly the 1950s, though there would be occasional references to contemporary people and things.
The rest of the Fun Section contained jokes and puzzles as well as a couple of short cartoon strips. I can remember one called Nero and Zero about two Roman soldiers and also possibly appearances by Desperate Dan from the Dandy.
Every year, DC Thomson would publish an annual in time for the Christmas holiday, alternating each year between Oor Wullie and The Broons. I always looked forward to getting one among my presents each year when I was young.
Facing declining circulation numbers like all newspapers, The Sunday Post underwent a revamp and modernisation in 2011, changing to a tabloid format and including a lifestyle magazine, PS. In 2014, the paper acknowledged its popularity in the North East of England by introducing a new comic strip featuring Wor Nicky, a feisty Geordie nurse.
The Sunday Post remains a much loved and well-respected Scottish newspaper, winning Scotland’s Newspaper of the Year award in 2018 and Sunday Newspaper of the Year in 2022. It represents to me a sort of journalistic comfort food, a link to my childhood and a reminder of what an important part of our culture newspapers used to be. On a recent visit to the UK I bought a copy, and its style and content were largely as I remembered. I’m sure that many generations have similarly fond memories of the newspaper that has kept Scotland entertained and informed for over a century.
Did you, or do you still, read The Sunday Post? I would love to hear your memories of it, or any other newspapers. Please get in touch via the Comments section or, if you’d prefer to send a private message, via the Contact Me page.
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