All Change

All that was to change in 1961, following a meeting between the British prime minister Harold MacMillan and President Kennedy, when a deal was done to give the US Navy base facilities in Britain for its deterrent fleet of Polaris submarines.The site chosen for the base was the Holy Loch, which had already seen service as a base for the Royal Navy during World War Two. The arrival of the first submarine tender, USS Proteus, and her brood of submarines in 1961 was to transform Dunoon and its economy for the following 30 years. It was a traumatic experience for a small town, turned overnight from a holiday resort into a major naval base, and suddenly inundated with thousands of servicemen and their dependants.The transformation was not without complications, but for many years the base was a highly popular posting for US Navymen, who grew to appreciate the friendly locals and spectacular scenery in the area. The closure of the base as the price of the peace dividend in 1993 was amajor blow to the local economy, but the Americans didn’t all leave - there are still many for whom the lure of Cowal far outweighed the attractions of their native land, and who continue to live in the area.

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drum scanner
linotype

John Carmichael with the original drum scanner

Marion Carmichael typesetting on a Linotype
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Throughout the changing years the paper, now known as the Dunoon Observer and Argyllshire Standard, continued to bring the news to the locals and their transatlantic neighbours, and Willie Inglis continued his dogged pursuit of stories to fill the pages. In 1961  Willie bowed to the march of progress and allowed new-fangled technology into the editorial office - he installed a telephone! Willie wrote his last editorial in 1977 and was succeeded by his daughter, Marion Carmichael, who ran the office for five years before Bill Millar took over, the first journalist from outside the family to sit in the editor’s chair. Bill, who sadly died in 1994 after a long illness, was succeeded by local man David Goodwin who had begun with the paper as a junior reporter in 1989. Gerry Burke was at the helm from 1999 to Spring 2000. Currently Marion Carmichael is serving as the editor.

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installation

Quality Printing Equipment

Operation of the last flatbed Newspaper Press

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Family Line continues

E and R Inglis is now owned by Marion Carmichael, great-great-grand-daughter of its founder, in partnership with her husband John and son John.
While the Observer's role remains unchanged, in the last decade there has been a radical overhaul of production methods. In 1985 the paper changed from broadsheet to tabloid, a situation which rendered obsolete the existing sheet-fed flatbed press. consequently the paper was printed in Oban for six years, but in 1991 a web-offset printing press was installed in the print works on John Street, which allowed for the printing of not only the Observer, but an expansion of operations which allowed the company to produce other publications as well.The paper had already moved into the electronic age and was using word processors and typesetting machines, but in recent years this technology has been overtaken by the desk-top publishing revolution, and the Observer has yet again updated its equipment.
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The Great Fire of 1996

The newspaper offices were destroyed in a disastrous fire on the 8th August 1996, but the move to temporary premises was achieved without missing a single edition of the paper. Building work commenced 17th November 1997 and the new premises were opened in October 1998.
The Dunoon Observer and Argyllshire Standard, known to many locals as The Standard, still serves the Cowal peninsula and much of Argyll, continuing to fulfil William Inglisí dream all those years ago. It has reported through the reigns of six monarchs and the terms of no less than 23 Prime Ministers, and approaches the millennium confident that it will continue to serve Cowal for generations to come.

The new building in 1998


Contact the Dunoon Observer at info@dunoon-observer.co.uk