The Cambs Times > Reviews (1)

Ironically, at the time I most need the money from Ciao, I find myself the most busy, with Ciao slipping from my mind much more. I am of course, talking about being at University, which is, awesome. When trying to think what I should next review, I was walking to Sainsbury to grab some milk, when, thrust upon me was the Manchester Evening News, ah, I thought, I will review the free paper from my homelands…

The Cambridgeshire Times, or Cambs Times as it is more lovingly known, is a free paper, which is delivered to the doors of nearly everyone in the Fenland area. Originally, the paper was a pay paper, costing about 40p, and released every Friday. Back then, the only free paper, was the Fenland Citizen, released on a Wednesday. In order for Archant Anglia (the publishing company) to compete, they produced the Fenland Post, which was a free paper also released on the Wednesday. This lasted around a year, until they took the decision to remove the Fenland Post, and make the Cambs Times a free paper delivered on its usual day of Friday. This change took place in September 2006 (I know since I used to deliver the Fenland Post, then the Cambs Times, and at my peak, I delivered the Cambs Times, Fenland Citizen and did two paper rounds in the mornings everyday – over £70 a week on paper rounds was awesome)

The Cambs Times features the news of the area, mainly focusing on the major Fenland Towns of March, Chatteris, Wisbech and Whittlesey. Ramsey is covered by the Hunts Post.

Content

The paper is full of news from the area, and while most of the time I don’t actually read much of it, I always skim through and read whatever interesting stories there may be. I mostly look for stories about my village, Benwick.

The stories it features are varied, from the more serious news, such as drug raids, court trials and the like, to the more bouncy villagey news such as new play equipment at a school, or a write up on a recent event. The balance is great, and the writers do a rather good job.

Obviously, being a free paper, it is filled with Adverts which subsidise it, you will find these all other the paper, but they aren’t distracting from the actual news.

There is a good letters section, where the public write letters regarding local news, most recently such things have included discussion about two new supermarkets due to be built locally, or teens getting fined for cycling on a pavement. There is a local historian, Trevor Bevis who regularly writes in, and his letters are always interesting to read.

There is a section in the paper which contains the Estate Agents adverts, for local houses and rentable properties, and it is here you will find the classified ads, and jobs section. The jobs bit is pretty good, and before the recession business covered a good few pages.

At the back of the paper, is Sports. It contains the write ups on local matches and such, I never really look at it much, since it is not at all my sort of thing, but plenty of attention is given to that Snooker player, Joe Perry, who comes from Chatteris.

On the very back page, is the crossword and some more news.

They have a good “whats on” section, which features details about forcomming local events, there they have given good coverage of the Book Launch of Benwick Bygones, and of the Benwick Dickensian Market, of which I wrote the actual articles they put in. They also have a small piece showing all the regular clubs and bits for the forthcoming week in the various towns and villages.

Getting stuff into the paper is a hit and miss business sometimes. Due to the various things I am involved in, I have needed to advertise various things, and the newspaper is a great way of getting information across. Such for the book launch of Benwick Bygones, whereby I got a good length piece, with an old photograph in there, which gave good advertising, and more recently the Dickensian Market. However, there have been times, that they either condense what I have written horrendously small, and make it something many would miss when reading, or they omit it entirely. I always include a picture which what I write, since I know they are always attention grabbing, unfortunately they are often omitted.

Before the Recession

Before all this economic rubbish happened, the paper was much more padded. Obviously with less advertising revenue coming in, the paper had to make some cuts with content. This was a real shame.

Previously, where the letters section was, there were two editorials which were a good read, and a brilliant local artist, Anita Davies had a section, which showcased some of her work. That was one of the many things I looked at, since I knew her from some of the work of Benwick she had done.

These disappeared in the recession, which was a huge shame.

Getting a Copy

If you live in one of the distribution areas, then the Cambs Times is delivered free of charge. The exact time depends on how good your paperboy is, when I did it, they were delivered before 9pm every Friday, or earlier when I didn’t have school. But now, in my village at least, it has been known to not receive them until Monday, and once they didn’t bother delivering it until the next week with the next edition.

If you want one when you are out and about, they can be purchased from local newsagents, but, only in the Fenland Area, for the price of 50p.

You can also read the E-edition. By going to their website, www.cambstimes.co.uk, you can find the online version of the paper. This is good, since I use it here so I can read the paper, but it can be a bitch to navigate sometimes, and would be better as a simple PDF or something, not as a strange online thingy which it is. The E-Edition is free, and just requires you to create an account.

Also online you can read different articles, and search for them using their keyword search. This is pretty good for finding certain things, and goes back a year or so.

Cambs Times vs Fenland Citizen

Personally, I prefer the Fenland Citizen, the longstanding free paper of the Fens still has the edge in content. They boast more articles, more jobs, and in general a bigger paper. Getting articles into the Citizen is much easier too, and in general it is a better read. But, considering you get both for free, you cannot complain too much…