The Swindon Advertiser marked the heaviest covering of snow seen in the town for around ten years with a 16-page picture special.

After Swindon woke up under a blanket of snow on Thursday, the paper cleared four pages of Friday’s paper to give it some coverage – and with the help of readers this soon ‘snowballed’ into a 16-page supplement.

The Advertiser began the day by updating its website with news on the weather situation, including school closures and road problems.

Readers were also urged to send in their own pictures and an online photo gallery was set up.

Editor Mark Waldron said: “We hadn’t seen snow like this for many years and, with previous weather stories selling well, we thought we’d do a special report on pages three to six.

“But as our photographers came back with their first pictures I started to wonder how we would do them justice. And then the first readers’ picture started arriving online…”

In consultation with newspaper sales and the subbing team it was agreed to concentrate on the news story in the paper and put all the pictures of people having fun in the snow in an eight-page special.

But the eight pages were quickly filled and there was no sign on the readers’ pictures stopping – so it was upped to 16 pages.

Billboards put out by newspaper sales promoting Friday’s eight-page special were hastily recalled and updated.

And the advertising team was brought in to sell the back page to generate some additional revenue.

Mark said: “Watching the regularity of the readers’ pictures coming in was amazing. Out of the 14 inside pages, we filled six of them just through submitted shots.

“As we headed into the evening the photos were still dropping in and we could so easily have gone up to 24 pages but we had to draw the line.”

However, readers did not miss out, as the Advertiser published another eight pages of pictures on Saturday.

Mark said: “The whole process was a great team effort involving my editorial team, particularly chief sub Steve Webb who saw the supplement through, digital media, newspaper sales and advertising – and, of course, our wonderful readers.”