NOT much has happened in Wairarapa throughout the last 70 years that Avis O'Neale hasn't heard about. That's because Avis, 96, has had the Wairarapa Times-Age delivered every day since it was first published under that banner in 1938, give or take a brief period during the early days of WorldWar II. The Featherston woman is the newspaper's longest continuous subscriber and settling down into her Lazy-boy after a very active day to catch up on the news is still a daily joy for her. Not unlike a lot of us, Avis turns first to the back page to check on who has been hatched, matched or dispatched. Then it's back to the front page to begin a careful scrutiny of what's happening in our valley. Avis is a great believer in local news she doesn't want to be confronted with a lot of overseas news items, and she is a firm advocate for her own town. "There's not enough Featherston news in the paper these days." She recognises that her loyalty to the Times-Age has come at a considerable financial cost not because the cover price is exorbitant but simply because of the huge number of issues she has purchased. "I could probably have gone on a world trip with the money." When she began buying the paper it was a substantially different looking product. "There was advertisements all over the front page and very few photographs, and they were in black and white." The Wairarapa Times-Age staff is greatly appreciative of the loyalty shown by Avis and happy to keep her daily reading arriving at her front door.
