ACROSS the country some 230,000 blind or visually impaired people enjoy the contents of their favourite newspaper, magazine or periodical through the medium of a talking newspaper. Local volunteers record highlights from a range of regional publications, and The Times and other journals are available nationally through Talking Newspapers Association UK. Increasingly, in place of tape, internet editions of newspapers are translated into synthesised voices and transmitted by e-mail — which means that recipients can hear what is in the national press a couple of hours before sighted people have their papers delivered.

Although tape-recording enthusiasts had been providing informal small-scale recorded news services since the late 1940s, Ronald Sturt was responsible for introducing talking newspapers systematically across Britain. He had seen a similar operation while on a fact-finding visit to Västerås in Sweden, and launched his operation in 1970.

He began in Aberystwyth, where he was head of the department of administrative studies at the College of Librarianship. With the blessing of the newspaper publishers, and with the help of his local Rotary Club, he took extracts from the Cambrian News and the Cardigan and Tivyside Advertiser, recorded them on tape, and distributed them as the Cardiganshire Talking Newspaper.

Soon similar operations were springing up across the country, each serving its own local community. In 1974, encouraged by Sturt, several of these groups came together to form the Talking Newspapers Association UK, a support group designed to disseminate good practice and to deal with issues such as copyright and distribution.

The association became more active in 1983 when it began to produce recordings of national newspapers and magazines to complement the work of the local groups. Based in Heathfield, East Sussex, it now posts 41,000 tapes each week, as well as providing the e-mail service. After listening to them, subscribers return the tapes for recycling. Although the service provided by local groups is free to users and paid for by local fundraising, the national service employs several staff and makes a small charge.

Sturt, who was at various times chairman and president of the association, was involved again in 1987 when a commercial offshoot, Talking Newspapers Enterprises, was set up to produce catalogues, brochures and even bank statements for companies wishing to reach visually impaired customers.

Ronald Ernest Sturt was born in Chobham, Surrey, the middle one of three sons of the local baker. He won a scholarship to Woking Grammar School but contracted tuberculosis in his late teens and was registered disabled from 1940 to 1945. This serious illness undoubtedly inspired much of his later work.

On his recovery he worked in a range of occupations, including almost ten years in accountancy, before training as a librarian in Brighton in his mid-thirties. Always an avid reader himself, he now realised how deprived some people were if, for whatever reason, they were unable to read.

In 1964, after working in a number of public libraries, notably in Hertfordshire, Sturt was appointed senior lecturer at the new College of Librarianship in Aberystwyth (now the department of information and library studies at the University of Wales). While there he wrote a dissertation on the provision of library services to the blind and the handicapped, and it was this that took him to Sweden, where he discovered talking newspapers. His own first talking newspaper, which he recorded personally, was launched on New Year’s Day 1970 and sent to 20 subscribers.

Sturt continued with his day job, and in 1972 was appointed chief librarian at the City of London Polytechnic. He was swiftly promoted to assistant provost. Before retiring in 1981 he had a two-year secondment (1974-76) during which he set up the National Bureau for Handicapped Students (now known as Skill).

He was the recipient of the Grimshaw Memorial Award by the National Federation of the Blind in 1977, and in 1990 he was appointed MBE. That same year his wife, a Liberal Democrat councillor, was Mayor of Chelmsford and he served her as Mayor’s Consort.

A reassuring, pleasant man, always positive and friendly, Sturt was a devout Methodist and an active member of his local church. He was also involved in numerous groups in Chelmsford, serving people with various disabilities.

He was married first in 1945 to Pat. In 1961 he was married for the second time, to Felicity Page. She survives him, as do a daughter and two sons from his first marriage.

Ronald Sturt, MBE, founder of Talking Newspapers, was born in Chobham, Surrey, on October 2, 1921. He died from complications arising from diabetes on January 6, 2003, aged 81.