Paul Presents the Kennet Cassette with Peter Dann and Tim Barton

Kennet Cassette (aka Newbury talking newspaper) is a charity and thus does not charge for its services.

Operated entirely by volunteers the charity was set up in 1976 by Peter Dann with the objective of giving blind and visually impaired people access to their local newspaper.

This is achieved in 2 ways.

-Each week 4 readers and a “knob twiddler”* get together to record excerpts from the current week’s newspaper.

Copies are then made and distributed by post to their listeners.

-Once a month a team comes together to record a more general monthly review which is copied and distributed in a similar way to the weekly news recording.

* the knob twiddler operates the recording equipment.

Starting in 1976 Kennet Cassette provided the Newbury talking newspaper on tape cassettes which listeners played on their standard cassette player.

But this changed on 12th October 2017 when the service went digital.

The current arrangement records the Newbury talking newspaper on USB memory sticks.

These are small devices on which the recordings are saved.

Copies are then made and distributed to their listeners.

The copies can be played on any standard player that accepts memory sticks.

However, if a listener does not have a suitable player, Kennet Cassette will lend one to the listener.

Go to the Digital page for more details or click here.

The Kennet Cassette talking newspaper serves anyone with an interest in Newbury and especially people living in West Berkshire eg: Newbury; Thatcham; Hungerford; Reading etc. Kennet Cassette also helps those who have moved away from the area keep in touch with their town.

If you or someone you know has difficulty reading and you think that Kennet Cassette recordings would be useful, why not contact the Newbury talking newspaper via the contacts page.