Alan Osborn, editor of the Carmarthen Journal for the past 20 years, is to retire.

The 61-year-old has spent his entire career with the Northcliffe group, joining the South Wales Evening Post as a copy boy in 1956.

Later he spent time on the paper’s sports desk, learning skills such as subbing, and after a spell in news reporting he joined the subs desk where he was later appointed deputy chief sub-editor.

In 1983 he was appointed editor of the Carmarthen Journal, and during his editorship, its circulation has gone from strength to strength, achieving record sales figures year after year.

Alan (left) said: “When I arrived the circulation was 15,000 and going down – we’re now up to 22,000. Every ABC figure we’ve had, bar one, has shown an increase.”

The paper has seen many changes in the past 20 years, including the transition from hot metal, and a change in format, from broadsheet to tabloid, in the early 1990s.

Alan also introduced a sixth edition of the paper, with each edition becoming more localised, with more page changes, and its publication day has also changed from Thursdays to Wednesdays – all of which he believes have contributed to the paper’s circulation success.

Alan said: “The paper used to have its own press – a terrible thing where you were lucky to get the paper out.

“Printing would start at 4pm on a Wednesday and stop about 9pm and then start again about 7am on a Thursday and finish at about 12 – but this meant that some areas of Carmarthenshire wouldn’t get the paper until Friday morning.

“But when we changed to contract printing it could be produced more quickly and we were able to get it out on a Wednesday, which is market day in the area so there are more people around.”

But despite its changes, he believes that its traditional news values have remained the same.

Alan said: “The paper is the oldest in Wales, dating back to 1810, and its history has always been in the back of my mind.

“It’s a trusted paper – once when the clocks were going back we said that they were going forward – and people thought it must be right because it was in the Journal.”

But now he is preparing to hand over the reins, and will leave the paper on October 3, leaving his successor with the challenge of maintaining the sales increases.

Alan said: “I think the time is right. I’ve taken the paper forward – when I started it had a rather Victorian image and the way the stories were written in an old-fashioned way – and now hopefully someone will come and take it on again.

“In one respect it was easy for me as the circulation was going down, but when it is increasing any changes you make endanger that.

“Obviously whoever takes over will want to put their own mark on the paper, but any changes will have to be done with sales in mind.”

Do you have a story about the regional press? Ring 0116 227 3122/3121, or
e-mail [email protected]