Local women is record breaker...

[Kintyre Forum News]

From the Daily Record...

I'M A RECORD BREAKER
Beth hasn't missed a single issue of her paper in 80 years
By Keith Mcleod
A GRAN has been hailed as the Daily Record's most loyal reader - after never missing an issue in 80 years.

When Beth McKinven first started reading the Record in the 1920s, the big stories were the General Strike, the rise of Mussolini in Italy, the birth of the present Queen and the Wall Street Crash.

Beth, 85, is now in her ninth decade of buying Scotland's favourite daily read.

She started to read the Record in 1926 when her father, fisherman Donald McMillan, brought a copy to their home in the village of Carradale, Kintyre.

Beth said: "I've always read all of the Record since myself and many others were brought up on it.

"I used to walk to the shop at the pier and the Record, the Express and the Bulletin were all one penny.


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"I always bought the Record, though, because everyone I knew was in the Chum Club and they had great competitions."


The Chum Club was launched by the Record in the 30s and proved a huge hit with children right up until World War II.


Beth remembers the club song, which went: "Laugh away your worries, don't be sad and glum, then everyone will know that you're a chum, chum, chum."


She married Dan McKinven in 1947 and they had two daughters, Mhairead, 57, and Sharman, 55.


Now living in Campbeltown, Argyll, Beth was widowed in 1990.


She said: "These days I head straight for the sports section because my grandson Gregor Robertson is a professional footballer in England and he likes me to keep him up to date with all the football news from Scotland."


Gregor, 22, has appeared for Scotland under-21s and plays with Rotherham in English League One.


Daughter Mhairead said: "Mum started reading the Record very young because of the Chum Club and the comic strip Bringing Up Father.


"She also won a competition and received a posh yo-yo from the Record which was quite something in a small village in the 1930s.


"Nowadays, she is up at 7.30am and away to get her Record.


"She can't recall any day, apart from Sundays, when she has not bought the Record."