Sandwell Talking News (STN) is a weekly audio newspaper for blind and visually impaired people in and around Sandwell. It is completely volunteer-run, produced, recorded and edited by a team of blind, partially sighted and sighted volunteers. Our youngest volunteer reader is 6 and oldest 70+
The Christmas edition is particularly special, as volunteers write their own poetry, short stories, news articles, music and quizzes, or read their favourite festive poems with the kind permission of the authors. Here is the 2024 Christmas Special, and the 2025 one will drop on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, on 20 December.
We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed creating it!
Content:
- Introduction from our editor, Ray
- Festive greetings and messages from the Sandwell Talking News volunteer readers.
- 12 Days of Black Country Christmas with kind permission of the Black Country Living Museum, read by volunteer Trevor.
- Pam interviews Santa and Mrs Claus at the Sandwell Visually Impaired event: Santa’s Turkey Sandwich Party.
- ‘The Christmas Bauble’ a short story written and read by volunteer Debbie.
- Christmas memories of visiting Lewis’s department store Birmingham by Janet.
- Olivia (Sarah-Ann’s daughter) reads a poem – The Chubby Snowman, by Anon.
- A Traditional Family Christmas by kind permission of Brian Bilston read by Jan.
- Mrs Claus poem by kind permission of Brian Bilston read by Jan.
- Local historian Frank Caldwell talks about Christmas at Oak House, introduced by Pam.
- Gavin reads a poem by former SVI Chair Graham Price ‘Festive Cheer’.
- Syreeta, STN’s tech volunteer, plays a Christmas song on the steel pans.
- A Kidnapped Santa Claus, a short story (in the public domain) by L. Frank Baum, read by James
- ‘Growing Love’ a poem written and read by volunteer Lauren.
- A Black Country Nativity (Mary, an er babby) by Londoner Michael Prescott and a class of Black Country Children read by Jennie.
- Jingle Bells, Covid and Lock Down SVI choir.
If you’d like to join our volunteer reading team, submit an article or donate please get in touch.
Contact us
Email: sandwelltn@gmail.com
Phone: c/o Sandwell Visually Impaired (SVI) on 0121 525 4810.
If you are blind or visually impaired or have a visually impaired or blind friend or relative who would like to listen to the weekly STN, here is:
How to listen
You can listen online, with Alexa, on the phone or we can send you a USB (pen drive) or CDs in the post every week. Our postal service is for visually impaired people who live in and around Sandwell. Want to sign up for this free service? Contact us via Sandwell Visually Impaired.
Listen on Alexa
We are available on Amazon Echo devices. Enable the Talking Newspapers skill via your connected mobile device or computer first. Once enabled, just ask Alexa to ‘Open Talking Newspapers’ and follow the instructions. If you have previously used My Talking Newspaper skill, delete this skill as it may conflict with the new Talking Newspapers skill.
Listen on your phone
We also phone service where you can listen to Sandwell Talking News. Call on 0121 699 6696. Full instructions are available when you dial in. You can also leave feedback for us via phone message on this service. Give it a try! Local call charges apply.
For this week’s STN and recent editions:
https://sandwellvisuallyimpaired.org.uk/sandwell-talking-news/
