Tam's Tall Tales

- Sunday Post Celebrates Centenary


Souvenir Supplement in Sunday Post Centenary Edition



Home of Oor Wullie and The Broons
This iconic Scottish Sunday newspaper has reached its hundred year anniversary. The paper, which remains in the ownership of the Thomson family from Dundee, sells strongly in Scotland and the north of England.

A spokesman said that its formula for success is the strong bond it has with its readers, championing their causes and using many of their contributions throughout the paper.

It has also espoused family values and never contains anything off colour. It has used the advertising tagline "a thoroughly decent read" and provides extensive coverage of sport, politics and domestic issues and tries to have something for everyone in the family. It used to be said that if the Sunday Post doctor focussed on a particular ailment on Sunday, doctors would see an upsurge in patients presenting with symptoms on the following day. And if he recommended a particular remedy the demand for that would also rocket.

However, for many people the stars of the show have been cartoon characters Oor Wullie and The Broons. Wullie's upturned bucket has entered the folk lore as he and his sidekick Fat Bob and Wee Eck tried to evade PC Murdoch - (who kept on wearing a helmet long after the Scottish force had discarded theirs). The graphics here are both from the end of WWII with Oor Wullie celebrating (sitting on his beloved bucket painted with the Union Jack) and the Broon boys home in 1945 for a quiet celebration with the family...

When the paper was only circulated in Scotland, sales of the Sunday Post were so high that it was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the newspaper with the highest per capita readership penetration of anywhere in the world. During its long life it my have reached two to three million readers but in recent years, as with most print media, readership has declined.

The Broons have been on the go since their creation in 1936 by editor R D Low and artist Dudley D Watkins who died in harness in 1969.

Both Oor Wullie and Broons annuals are still published - editions for 2015 are on sale at Amazon (UK and US).

Best of luck for the next hundred years!

Please give me whatever feedback comes to mind via tamfromrampant@gmail.com.

Tam O'Ranter
May 2014

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