A staple in households on Arran and across all four corners of the globe, the Arran Banner is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month.
To mark this special milestone of delivering all the local news and views from the island, and documenting important local events for 50 years, we take a look back at the paper over the last five decades - from its inception through to its future.
The first Arran Banner came out in March 1974, although its exact early history is lost in the mists of time.
What did happen is that early that year a group of people, not known to each other, met to discuss the possibility of an island newspaper.
Paul Monty is widely credited as being the leading light as he had the printing machinery in Whiting Bay. But the paper, while normally monthly, was sporadic and by the end of 1976 all resemblance to a co-operative venture had gone and Paul was the sole proprietor.
Ronnie Mann had met Paul after coming to the island that year to set up as a chartered accountant.
Paul was by this time running the Banner with a small staff, including his wife Mandy and Mo Khan, who was with the Banner until 1984.
By the following year, Paul was ready to give up and asked Ronnie, who was at that time trying to expand his accountancy firm with Island Business Services, if he wanted to buy it.
Ronnie said the idea of owning the local newspaper to advertise these services appealed to him but he was ‘stony broke’ and had no experience of printing or publishing.
He raised the money to buy the paper with just 60 public subscriptions of £30 in return for a free Banner for life.
The Banner had now moved from Whiting Bay to Brodick and the building - now Banner Cottage – was for many years its home. Ronnie brought in Marc Head, his future brother-in-law, as editor and publisher.
Ronnie admits that the first year was ‘a nightmare’, with an old rotary press that, he said, was literally held together with rubber bands.
But he had promised subscribers the paper would be weekly and said: “We always felt if we missed one week, we’d be back to square one.”
However, a breakthrough came when the then Cunninghame District Council agreed to recognise the Banner as a newspaper and used it to post its public notices.
“Councillor Evelyn Sillars was extremely supportive in this, as always,” said Ronnie.
However, by the time they could afford a new press, team members were ‘burnt out’ and some of their enthusiasm had waned.
Enter John Millar with an offer to buy them out.
Ronnie said: “It is Paul Monty who has to be congratulated for the vision to get the Banner up and running and we were the partnership that got it to a weekly newspaper."
John Millar took over the paper in January 1981. A former Merchant Navy officer and producer with the BBC, he was working at Manchester Polytechnic as a ‘stop gap’ but wanted to be self-employed.
He knew Arran well as his father’s family came from Kilmory.
John said: “We had thought about moving to France but my wife insisted that if we were going anywhere daft it had to be Arran. But we always lived in Brodick as she had to be in sight of the ferry.”
John said there was a lot of hostility to himself and the Banner when he took over and he found people had an attitude to newspapers he had been unprepared for.
He said: “Some thought it should be campaigning, others thought it should be about the printing and others it should be all about the writing.
“I think the compilation process was my biggest skill but I had to start writing and came to start writing a lot.”
John improved the quality of the Banner with a new printing press and a new process camera.
In another milestone, in 1984, the Banner made it into the Guinness Book of Records with a readership of 97 per cent plus on the island.
The end of the road for the John Millar era came when the Banner was bought by The Oban Times in 2003.
John had been approached five years earlier by a radio company, but he turned down their ‘generous offer’. He felt the paper would be in safe hands with The Oban Times, which had a number of titles across the West Highlands.
Over the ensuing years, the Banner maintained its loyal following under the stewardship of a number of editors including Howard Driver and, most recently, Hugh Boag who retired at the start of 2024.
The Arran Banner continues to prosper under the ownership of Wyvex Media, which also own The Oban Times, Argyllshire Advertiser, Campbeltown Courier, Lochaber Times and other websites and magazines.
This year, 2024, the Banner went through its biggest change in more than two decades. In addition to the printed paper, Wyvex Media embraced the digital age and invested significant sums in improving its digital offerings.
All of its publications, including The Arran Banner, are now individually represented under the umbrella of West Coast Today, which has immediately become the go-to place for local news across the West Coast.
The new website at www.westcoasttoday.co.uk has quickly risen to the forefront of digital storytelling, offering breaking news, more video and more audio content along with all the opinion, analysis and news you have come to love.
Of course, for those who prefer their news in paper format, the Arran Banner continues to be printed and remains available for readers at newsagents and stockists across the island.
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