East of England's 64-year-old news agency closes (2024)

A name familiar to journalists for more than 60 years has slipped into the annals of history.

Luton-based South Bedfordshire News Agency, better known as Fairley's, has closed down after its proprietor and final writer Tim Corkett retired.

Since 1960, it has sold reports and photographs to newspapers, television, radio stations and websites across the East of England and beyond.

Mr Corkett said the arrival of the internet, a decline in newspaper sales and a growth in the public relations industry had made life increasingly hard for organisations like his.

As one of the UK's independent, freelance news agencies, many members of the public may never have heard of the name Fairley's, but millions have seen its reports and photos.

The agency was set up by journalist David Pryke in 1960, the year a rock group from Liverpool adopted the name The Beatles and six years before England's footballers won the World Cup.

Harold Macmillan was Britain's prime minister, President Eisenhower was in power in the United States and Luton Town had recently been beaten 2-1 by Nottingham Forest in the 1959 FA Cup Final.

Any worries Mr Pryke had about there not being enough news in and around Luton must have been quickly extinguished.

By the end of 1963, two of the most notorious crimes of the 20th Century had been committed in the agency's patch.

In April 1962, James Hanratty became one of the last Britons to be hanged after being convicted of the A6 murder at Clophill, Bedfordshire.

And the Great Train Robbery was staged near Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire in August 1963.

Mr Corkett, 64, said Barry Simmons and Ron Fairley, whose surname gave the agency its popular name, later moved in.

In more recent times Mr Corkett, reporter Ross Francis and photographer John O'Reilly have been at the helm.

Mr Francis, 71, retired in 2021 and Mr O'Reilly, 72, followed earlier this year.

Initially the agency covered Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire but its patch widened over the years and journalists covered stories in Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Essex, London and, occasionally, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Fairley's began in an age of black-and-white photos, shorthand, typewriters and reporters making calls from public telephone boxes.

The agency's base was initially a rented house, with a spare bedroom set aside as the photographer's darkroom.

By the end, television cameras were being allowed into courts, stories were being sent from laptops or mobiles and photographs were being taken on digital cameras.

Reporters Tim Corkett and Ross Francis explained how they used to dictate their stories to newspaper copy-takers from public telephone boxes.

"The copy-taker would sometimes yawn if you were going on too long," said Mr Corkett.

Mr Francis said members of the public sometimes lacked patience: "People would sometimes be outside the phone box banging on the glass asking how long you were going to be."

Photographer John O'Reilly said he used to print photographs in a darkroom then hand them to a motorcycle rider who dispatched them to newspapers in London.

He recalled seeing photographers using digital cameras for the first time when covering a memorial service for film director Stanley Kubrick in St Albans in 1999.

But news agencies have come under increasing pressure in recent years.

"Unfortunately there was just me and a secretary who have been keeping things going recently," said Mr Corkett, who joined Fairley's in 1983.

"In the heyday, there were probably eight or nine people working.

"It's a sign of the times in the media, I'm afraid."

"Social media has taken over. People are not really prepared to pay for their news any more."

Court reporting had become "increasingly uneconomic", he added.

"Media organisations are getting their copy free from public bodies, particularly the police.

"They put together a press release that the media are happy to take free of charge."

Mr Corkett said he worried that information was now too freely and easily available online, that journalists were "thin on the ground" and public bodies were not being held to account.

"I think it is important to have independent media that scrutinises things, scrutinises public bodies," he said.

"The danger is now that there are no reporters on the ground."

• 1961 - The A6 killing: Scientist Michael Gregsten was shot dead in a lay-by at Deadman's Hill, on the A6 near Bedford. James Hanratty, 25, was convicted of murder and was one the last people to be hanged before the abolition of capital punishment.

• 1963 - The Great Train Robbery: A night mail train from Glasgow Central to London Euston was stopped by a gang, who escaped with £2.6m. Fifteen men were convicted of being involved.

• 1984 - The Fox: Malcolm Fairley carried out sex attacks in 1984 across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, sparking one of the largest manhunts in British criminal history. Fairley, dubbed The Fox, was jailed in 1985 and died in prison in 2024.

• 2005 - The Buncefield Fire: An explosion at the Buncefield oil depot near Hemel Hempstead in 2005 was the largest in Europe during peacetime. A fire raged for days. No-one was killed or seriously injured but damage was severe.

• 2024 - Morgan murder trial: Allen Morgan was jailed at Luton Crown Court after being found guilty of conspiring to murder former wife Carol in 1981.

He said the arrival of television cameras in the courtroom to film the sentencing of serious criminals, and online links to hearings, had also made life hard for news agencies.

"I sat there recently at the Allen Morgan sentencing and I am looking at a television camera that is filming the judge's comments.

"That tape is sent off to the media and it made me realise, there is no role for me here now.

"That case brought it home."

He added: "If television is going to come into court, I think the days of the old hack licking his pencil and scribbling away furiously in shorthand are probably gone."

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