OUR main picture was taken in early 1960.

It appeared on the front cover of the in-house magazine of Westminster Press, the then publisher of the Adver.

A copy of the magazine was brought to us by Ray Kemp, 85, who is planning a reunion for former newspaper staff ahead of our move to new offices later this month.

He appears on the left of the image, which also shows Jeff Poole, Joe Barr and Timmy Davies.

The friends worked together putting printing plates for newspaper pages together in the days long before computer technology found its way into the industry.

Mr Kemp, from Rodbourne, first came to work in the Victoria Road building in 1947.

Aside from a National Service stint in the Army which took him to the Far East, he remained with the company full-time until he was 62, and came back from time to time over the next four years.

He has vivid memories of his early years at the Adver.

“We all came down the back way from Drove Road to where the extension is. There were stalls we used to put our bikes in.

“Some of the men had fought in the First World War - they never spoke about it at all. Others were in the Second World War, and they didn’t speak a lot about it either.

“I remember there was a generator powerful enough to run the presses if there was a power cut.”

The magazine covered the whole of the Westminster Press Empire, which at that time included newspapers as far afield as York.

Swindon features in several stories, including one about the retirement of Mrs Violet Robins, who was better known in the town as Aunt Joy, leader of a junior readers’ club whose early members included the future Diana Dors.

A photograph showed her with colleagues, some of whom had been members of the club and wore their badges for the occasion.

Another story in the staff magazine was about improvements to the press which would allow bigger newspapers to be printed, and still another was about our oldest employee, 73-year-old Charles Newman , who lived at Okus Farm.

A collision between his bike and a motorcycle left the veteran printer with head, shoulder and rib injuries, and he was impatiently waiting for a doctor’s all-clear to return to work.

The reunion of former Adver staff will be held on Thursday, April 12 at the Conservative Club in Bath Road between 3pm and 7pm, and all who worked for the newspaper are welcome to attend.