A TALKING newspaper has been helping visually impaired people in south Oxfordshire keep up with local news for a quarter of a century.

Members new and old of the Didcot, Abingdon and Wantage Talking Newspaper (DAWN)with gather tomorrow to mark the 25th anniversary of the service.

DAWN founder Kim Miller will also be travelling from Scotland to join the celebration in Abingdon, which around 100 guests are expected to attend.

The rehabilitation officer launched the service in 1993 after realising the region, in contrast to most other parts of the county, lacked any form of talking news service.

The talking newspaper, which remains completely free, currently has around 110 members receiving a weekly recording of local news, including the Herald series and Oxford Mail.

Since its inception, more than 1,200 editions have been produced and over 150,000 tapes or USB memory sticks distributed.

Current chairman Tony Gillman, who is one of the founding members of the charity, said: "I started as I had some technical experience and have stayed all these years because it is a lovely charity that really helps people."

The 72-year-old added: “To some extent there has been a drop in listeners over the years but I still believe it is a very important service.

"There are more opportunities to get news compared to 25 years ago but it is remains very hard to get local news, which is our focus, in a non-written form."

Originally recording’s were made in Abingdon Community Hospital but DAWN was forced to move in 2009, and now has a permanent home at the Abingdon Health and Wellbeing Centre in Audlett Drive.

A big shift for the organisation came in April 2011 when it switched from recording the weekly news on cassette tape to a digitally recorded memory stick.

The cost of the changeover to digital recording was met by a grant from the Gannett Foundation, run by the Oxford Mail's parent company.

Tomorrow’s celebration will be held at the wellbeing centre where volunteers record from 2pm.

It will feature special guest Chris Davies, who was a finalist in this year’s BBC programme The Big Painting Challenge, and will be bringing artwork.

Local choir, The Matrix Consort will also be performing.

Visit dawntn.org.uk