Oxford Times, 7 May 1926

Available for over a year

James Naughtie finds the heartbeat of history in the front page small ads of old UK newspapers. The classified ads in the Oxford Times of May 7th 1926, the midpoint of the General Strike, spell out the state of emergency and announce a rally at which Labour MP, Oliver Baldwin, son of the Conservative Prime Minister, will speak in support of the strike. The Morris car plant has displaced the University as the city's biggest employer and the Jane Austin Agency is recruiting battalions of domestic staff. 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 Naughtie 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 BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in August 2019.