About us

It all started in 1979 thanks to a grant of £ 4000 for equipment from Wellingborough Lions Club and permission to use news from the Evening Telegraph, still the main source of our news. The first group of volunteers came from a small group of workers and their families from what was then Reliance Systems, where the earliest Cassette tapes were made. In 1980 we moved to a studio at the bottom of Park Road, 5A, Dexter’s Chambers, to be precise which we occupied until April 2014.

In 2004, during a trial period of three months, a small number of listeners who had agreed to take part in the pilot scheme, received their magazine programmes on CD and in January 2012 recording on cassette tapes and CDs was abandoned. The WDTN then invested substantially in state of the art digital recording equipment. Therefore the weekly news and magazine recordings are now delivered on USB Memory Sticks. These can be played either on a computer or on a special portable USB player which are supplied on loan free of charge.

Unfortunately the Council rent they were paying for their recording studio in Park Road Wellingborough eventually became untenable and they were forced to look for alternative accommodation. A new site was finally found and on Friday 11th July 2014.  The Worshipful The Mayor of Wellingborough, Councilor Jim Bass, opened the new recording studio which is located at the Belgrade Centre, Denington Road, Wellingborough, NN8 2QH.

Wellingborough and District Talking Newspaper for the Blind is a registered charity run entirely by volunteers to provide a FREE weekly service of local news and magazine information for more than 130 blind and partially sighted living in Wellingborough and the surrounding villages. Most live in Wellingborough and Rushden, and Raunds and other listeners live in the towns and villages of Bozeat, Earls Barton, Finedon, Grt. Doddington, Hingham Ferrers, Irchester, Irthlingborough, Islip, Mears Ashby, Podington, Stanwick, Wilby and Wollaston.  In addition there are 6 Day Centers and Care Homes in the catchment area where residents gather together in groups and enjoy listening to the WDTN weekly recordings. You can get in touch on this studio@wdtn.org.uk.