#FreakyReadershipFriday: Our biggest fan has been collecting our paper for 18 years!
She's not using our newspapers to make a braai – she's been collecting them for 18 years and counting.
It all started with Maggie Johnson collecting newspapers for household purposes, and ended in a collection of 414 editions – and counting.
Maggie seems to be the Herald’s biggest fan and has been collecting the paper for years. In this, her 18th year, she can collect a paper she is part of.
“That’s 18 years of history I have there,” she said while looking at her many piles of the Herald on her front porch.
She said it all started with collecting newspapers in case she needed to make a fire or cut up vegetables, but she only ever used the advertisement inserts in the papers.
“I don’t really know how it all began, but it grew – and just keeps growing,” Maggie explained.
She said her favourite sections of the Herald are the front page and the classifieds section.
“I’ve used many of the contractors in the paper over the years, from rubble removers to electricians,” she said.
She took a trip down memory lane with Herald journalist, Roxy de Villiers and recalled one of her first appearances in the paper in a pothole article.
In the photo, a large pothole on Lazaar Avenue was seen, filled with ice to keep soft drinks cold – just one of the many uses for the town’s apparently permanent potholes.
Maggie also remembers editors and journalists who have come and gone over the years, including Zerelda Bam, a former Herald editor.
It seems that her love for the Herald was meant to be, as she told us that the Herald’s former offices in Park Street used to be her aunt’s home in the 1950s. Even though she never went to those offices, she knew exactly what they looked like, long before the house’s conversion.
Before Maggie moved to Randfontein, she lived in Edenvale, where she read, but did not collect, the Bedfordview and Edenvale News, one of our sister newspapers.
The staff of the Herald are thrilled to know their newspaper is not just used as a liner for bird cages, even if it’s only by one reader.
Why not let the Herald know what you do with your newspaper, even if it is just to make a braai – we know it’ll be a great braai. Send an email to roxydv@caxton.co.za or post a note on one of our social media platforms – Facebook: Randfontein Herald; Twitter: @RfonteinHerald, or Instagram: @rfonteinherald.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at randfonteinherald@caxton.co.za (please remember to include your contact details in the email) or phone us on 011 693 3671.
For free daily local news on the West Rand, also visit our sister newspaper websites Roodepoort Record, Krugersdorp News and Get It Joburg West Magazine
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