"Photo News" Scores The Century One Hundred Issues Now Published

This issue of "Gisborne Photo News" is No.100, and to mark the occasion, we have devoted our "Pictures from the Past" feature to notable photographs taken from the first issue, published on June 3, 1954. That was the year Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Gisborne, but "Photo News" was not on the scene then, and their visit was recorded later with pictures supplied by other photographers. But it was also the year that Yvette Williams broke a world record at the Childers Road reserve, and the year that Gisborne had three All Blacks in the touring team.

One of the first people to congratulate us on the establishment of the magazine after the first issue went on sale was the Mayor, Mr Harry Barker. A journalist himself, he thought the magazine an excellent idea, but expressed a serious doubt: where did we think we would get enough interesting pictures to keep the magazine going?

Of course "Photo News" was very new then. Nobody had heard of such a magazine before, except in a small town in the South Island, But with the passing years, and experience, and organisation, Mr Barker's question has long since been answered. The question we now have to answer every month is not where the pictures are coming from, but how can we squeeze everything in which should be in.

Meanwhile "Photo News" has expanded...to New Plymouth, to Wanganui, to Nelson, to Tauranga, to Whangarei. That first issue, 100 months ago, sold 900 copies. Today 40,000 "Photo News" magazines are sold every month, and our readers probably number around the quarter-million mark. To them all, we extend greetings and thanks for their interest and patronage on the occasion of this milestone in the history of our magazines.

All Blacks Brian Fitzpatrick, Richard White, and Keith Bagley are welcomed back home by the Mayor, Mr Barker. Also in the picture: Mrs Barker and Mrs White.