By R Tyler Warfield
Wanganui resident Barbara Johnstone hasn't been without her morning ritual of reading the Chronicle for 65 years. To commemorate 148 years of New Zealand's oldest surviving newspaper, the Chronicle paid a visit to Mrs Johnstone with a bouquet and some of its birthday cake.
Mrs Johnston, 89, has been reading the paper since she married her late husband, John Johnstone, in Bulls, in October, 1939.
He took out the subscription at that time and it has continued since.
Mrs Johnstone, now retired, said she was a homemaker and wife and had two children who lived in Auckland.
Since 1989 she had been living alone and during that time she had the same ritual of having breakfast in bed with her morning Chronicle.
Besides reading the paper, she played Scrabble and did a little volunteer work. "I love gardening and I love flowers," she said, on receiving a bouquet on behalf of Chronicle editor John Maslin and the whole Chronicle team.
She said she always read the first page and the sport section. Her favourite parts of the Chronicle were the letters to the editor and the editorial.
She said she liked the Chronicle because it was the way she kept up with the news and because not much had changed about it over the years, apart from the layout.
"That is something that the Chronicle is (New Zealand's) oldest paper.
"It seems to have a good variety of items. Some of them are not up to much. But you have to take the good with the bad. I think it is a very good paper. Especially on a Saturday," she said.
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