Canadian Youth Produces a Paper In Ambitious Way

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1942, Page 2

Canadian Youth Produces a Paper In Ambitious Way

Copy received by girl at Stratford. Enterprise by a 13-year-old Canadian boy has resulted in the regular publication of a newspaper entitled "The Sentinel," a copy of which has reached Stratford. It is , cyclostyled on 12 half-foolscap | pages and contains a variety of ; news and articles that do the youthful editor great credit. Underneath the heading are the inscriptions, "Ilonorary member of the British United Press" and "A Newspaper Worth Reading." It is published monthly at Vancouver and apparently has been in existence for some time, for the copy received is dated June, 1942, and is numbered volume 3, No. 6. It has a laudable object according to its description: "The Sentinel is issued to promote better reading for the democratic countries of the world." Story of a Sinking Ship. Pride of place — the front page — is given to an article "My Ship Was Sunk ofl Singapore," apparently written by a young passenger on the Empress of Asia, which was sunk by the Japanese. The concluding paragraph of the story reads: "I just want to add one more thing regarding the Asia and that is that she did not go down as a coward, but shot down two Japanese planes and she was abandoned with her colours proudly flying." The editorial staff follows American newspaper practice with a "columnist in fact, it has two. "News items," better known in New Zealand journals as "personals," are headed with the announcement that the editor's brother and sister-in-law "were blessed with a baby girl .... the family's spaniel will not get as much attention now." Foreign affairs are catered for by paragraphs summarising events in Madagascar, Malta, Martinique, Corregidor, Australia and lndia and a message from London. Even Hollywood. Sports, including baseball and racing, receive attention and the doings of Hollywood celebrities are chronicled. Odd items of information, from two-line paragraphs to half page articles, gathered from various sources and dealing with all parts of the world, fill in odd corners, while adventisements, many obviously genuine, plentifully intersperse the news. That Jimmy Mains, the editor, knows something of New Zealand is revealed in the letter accompanying the publication. It is addressed to > .iss Shona Golding, Stratford, in reply to an advertisement in a Canadian newspaper for a pen-friend. In offering her the job of correspondent for the Sentinel in New Zealand he suggests: "You could write articles such as New Zealand, The War in the Pacific. New Zealand is Two Islands, or 'Ao-Tea-Roa,' The Maori Story of New Zealand." He adds that he is, trying to get correspondents in different parts of the world. Jimmy Mains claims as his hobbies stamp collecting, reading. collecting newspaper headlines and 1 The Sentinel, which he prints and edits himself.