Dear LPG readers,

As mentioned above, this is a milestone year and indeed a milestone day for us at LPG because the first ever edition of our newspaper was published in 1984.     We have come a long way since then and many editorial team members have joined and left our group.   

As ever, our celebration post offers two main messages.  The first and most important one continues to be a big thank you to all our readers and the special people who get in touch and share their stories, which is as ever, followed with our reminder that, without all the input that your telephone calls and emails bring us, we would never be able to continue our work.  Please keep them coming… 

The Lewisham Pensioners’ Gazette was originally a charitable organisation run by older people for the benefit of those older people.  The aim both then and now has always been to provide a space where anyone, with the benefit of age and experience, would be able to share their stories and ideas.   

After thirty-three years of quarterly newssheets, we took the decision to go electronic, but we still post an article each day which is written for, or inspired by pensioners, and which aims to either entertain or educate people of a certain age.  The only difference is that we are now internet based.

We can’t do much about those who are not yet able to access us online barring introducing as many as we can to how easy it is if you have a phone, laptop or PC, but our small editorial team spend a lot of time talking to the pensioners we meet, and collecting telephone-spoken and hand-written messages, so that we can translate them into our daily posts. 

If you remember and enjoyed the paper version and can find us on the internet, we look forward to your virtual visits, and if you are able to pass any of our writers’ news on to older friends who have not yet discovered how to access it for themselves, we would encourage you to spread the word.  

Lockdown left us with so much negative fallout but, not being able to stay in contact with the outside world persuaded many older people who would have never otherwise even considered buying one, to invest and work out the basics of using a smart phone.  If you are reading this message on the small screen you may well have Googled us in order to do so but, once you have got someone who knows how to set it up, you are only the press of one button away from seeing what so many pensioners have to tell each day.

We are still here and always looking to translate your messages, whatever the subject, to be shared on the internet, albeit anonymously, so that they inform and are not lost while they give insight into the issues that affect everyone, but particularly we people who have already crossed the retirement threshold, and speak from experience as we remind the rest of the virtual world how life really is when you are older. 

So we invite you to help us celebrate our 40th birthday while we remind you that today (June 26th 2024) also marks the seventh anniversary of the day that our website went live.

  
Find us at www.lpgazette.org

For those who might remember we have found a bit of LPG nostalgia…

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