Have you ever wondered how The Anguillian, is produced? How much time and effort goes in to obtaining the content we all expect to see each week? What does it take to have it printed and distributed to the waiting public?

Nat Hodge, Editor The Anguillian

To run a newspaper office is no mean achievement. It requires dedication, commitment, a thick skin and the ability to keep going when times are hard and all you really want to do is just walk away.

Nat Hodge, the Editor of The Anguillian, started in journalism as a freelance writer for the weekly Democrat Newspaper in St Kitts in 1964, the year I was born. This was two years after he left The Valley Secondary School, now the Albena Lake Hodge Comprehensive School. He became a reporter in 1966 and was appointed Editor in 1969. He accepted the post of News Editor at Radio Anguilla in January 1973. In July 1992 he was appointed Director, a position he held until he retired in September 1998.

Noreen Hodge, Business Manager

Each week Nat and his team of journalists and writers start the never ending process of following the stories, attending the events, writing the articles and taking the photographs which will go into the next edition of the newspaper. This can mean that articles are continually coming into the office, often right up to the copy deadline on Wednesday afternoons and the newspaper has to respond and be flexible enough to be able to cope with late breaking events. Nat is often found out and about with his Dictaphone poised and his camera primed. He tries to cover as many events in person as possible on top of his editing duties, which make his job a very physically demanding one.

Monica Reid, Layout and Design Officer

In addition to the regular columns and on going news stories, there are the community items that people send in to be printed, to publicise events both large and small that are taking place around the island; the yard sales, the charity bingo sessions, the visiting musician or clergyman. These items need to be accommodated within the bulging pages of news. At this time of year, The Anguillian is particularly busy as the tourist season has just started once more. Businesses, hotels and restaurants are reopening after their break and are keen to proclaim to the world their new menus, their need for staff or their new premises. Looking through recent editions it is noticeable that there are many more advertisers now than through the summer, reflecting the growing number of businesses and activities on the island. This can be a headache for the newspaper staff, as many people leave it to the last minute to send in content. Space has been at a premium recently due to a paper supply shortage at the printers, making late copy a layout challenge.

I visited the newspaper’s offices on distribution day, in this, the ninth year since the newspaper’s inception on 4 December 1998. I joined the orderly chaos that is the normal Thursday lot of the staff there.

Monique Webster, Receptionist

Nat was reviewing a completed edition, checking the layout and colour, the articles and photographs that make up the newspaper. He had not long completed the weekly ritual of driving to Blowing Point to physically pick up the heavy bales of newspapers which had been shipped by the printers in St Marteen. For a gentleman older than my father this was no mean feat. We chatted for a short while and he told me of a telephone call from a reader in Cumbria, Northern England, who asked for information on houses and land for sale on Anguilla and the possibility of work here. The Anguillian is clearly a global entity.

In the Front Office Nat’s wife, Noreen, the Business Manager, was busy with the accounts and paperwork, going over the administration that makes the enterprise tick. My camera did not faze this hard working, practical and sweet smiling lady in the least. She has been married to a journalist for too long to worry about the odd photograph being taken by a mad English writer, who drops in out of the blue!

At the reception, Monique Webster was busy taking calls and being her usual pleasant and welcoming self, her bright, eye-catching yellow t-shirt a little ray of sunshine.

Zoe Webster, Distributor

In the main office, there was a hive of activity. Literally dozens of piles of newspapers, all neatly stacked, were being systematically sorted into heaps of different sizes for the various outlets all over the island. There was a stack for Proctors, for Lakes, for The Drug Store and dozens of others, each neatly labelled so there was no mistake as to direction. The whole procedure was quietly presided over by Zoe Webster, the newspaper’s main distributor, working from a large and impressive dog-eared log book. Each recipient and the number of copies is listed in the book and she was able to go straight to my copy, labelled with my name and address, as I receive it on subscription, with no difficulty at all.

In the background was the shy and retiring figure of Monica Reid, already diligently working on the layout of the next edition. This busy lady puts the jigsaw puzzle that is The Anguillian together each week, constantly juggling to get everything laid out correctly and then re-juggling when late breaking news arrives unexpectedly. Her reaction to my camera was to giggle and hide her head so I was lucky to get a usable shot. As with all the staff at The Anguillian’s office, no one is used to being the centre of attention and today I was giving them all a lot of well deserved notice.

After I left, I know that the papers were delivered to the various outlets, for sale to readers both local and visitor. For the staff, there was time to heave a brief sigh of relief that another edition was out, before moving on and beginning the process all over again.

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