The first edition of the Black Country Bugle was published in early April 1972 In those early days, many people doubted that the Black Country Bugle would be very long-lived at all. The opinion often put forward was "It's a great read, but the stories are bound to run out before long". Well, thirty years later, the stories are still there waiting to be told, and the self-perpetuating attributes of the Bugle are as strong as ever.
We usually let other people blow the Bugle for us, of course - most notably you, the readers, who are constantly sending in articles, letters, old photographs, poems, you name it, to fill our pages!
Today of course, we publish weekly, and that has been the case for the past four and a half years - but long established readers will be well aware that for the largest part of our history to date, we have been a monthly publication.
The Black Country Bugle's byline has always been "The Voice of the Black Country", and that is what you the readers, made it from the outset. From day-one we could therefore rely on frequent inputs from numerous people - too many to obviously list by name here. Extract from an article published in the 28th March 2002 (500th edition)