蜜芽传媒

James Naughtie concludes his exploration of history through front page small ads.

The Dundee Courier of 16th November 1922, the morning after the General Election that saw Winston Churchill displaced by the UK's only ever Prohibitionist MP Edwin Scrimgeour, and the classified ads announce a victory rally. Also, the Colonial Department is recruiting clerks and engineers for Ceylon, Nigeria and South Africa, and the city's fashion shops are competing for the custom of the wives and children of the jute mill owners.

Front page news is a relatively late addition to the newspaper business. For most of their first couple of centuries, British newspapers carried classified ads rather than news on their front page. They transformed the hustle and bustle of the marketplace into newsprint, so you could take it home or to the inn to pore over at your leisure.

James travels the country discovering how these front page ads give us a snapshot of time and place, exploring how they weave national and local life together - the heartbeat of history rolling daily or weekly off the presses.

Producer: John Forsyth

A Loftus Media production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4, first broadcast in 2018.