History of Oxtalk
In 1979 a group of blind and sighted people began planning, fundraising and recruiting specialist help to provide talking news in the Oxford area. Ralph Brain, retired news editor of the Oxford Mail, became the first editor of Oxtalk and Keith Wittrick the first technician.
On May 27th 1980 the first tape of the Oxford and District Talking News was produced on C90 cassette; 35 copies were made using the copying facilities at Westminster College and 28 tapes were sent out every fortnight.
Today, we send out between 150 and 200 tapes per week, on C60 cassettes, to our listeners in Oxford and surrounding areas thanks to the work of an army of volunteers supporting the organisation in a variety of ways: from editing the local newspapers, fundraising and recording news items to copying the tapes, sending them out to listeners and getting involved in the planning of Oxtalk’s activities.
Our thanks go not only to our volunteers but the supporting organisations that make our work possible: the Oxford Mail, whose news items we use on a weekly basis; the Royal Mail, via which we are able to send out the tapes; and Radio Cherwell, which has been such a staunch supporter of Oxtalk over the years and without the help of which we would be unable to supply our weekly bulletins.
