'Sign of the times' as 64-year-old news agency closes

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.

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