First Published: 2009

Hardcover 290 pages

LIMITED EDITION 600 copies

Size: 30.3cm x 21.5cm x 2.5cm approx

Book Weight: 1465g approx

HARD TO FIND TITLE

Book Description:

A limited edition book celebrating sixty years of the Stafford magazine.  The book is A4 size, case bound and includes articles selected from the very early issues and through the years. 

FOREWORD

by RONNIE IRVING, CHAIRMAN OF THE KENNEL CLUB

As Chairman of the Kennel Club it is my great pleasure to have been asked to write the foreword for this book celebrating the 60th anniversary of The Stafford magazine. Even I was young when the Southern Counties Staffordshire Bull Terrier Society first published the magazine. It has developed greatly since then.

To this day, the magazine still retains its sub-title 'the official organ of the SCSBTS' and there have been some very fine organ-grinders during its illustrious history. I shall leave the current editor, Jean Loughborough, to give you a fuller history of the magazine later in this issue but there are a few names which it would be remiss of me not to mention here.

The Stafford was first published in 1948, with the esteemed Nap Cairns at the helm. I am aware that Nap was a giant in the breed and laid the foundations which have ensured that the magazine is still going strong today. In his 21 years as editor, he established The Stafford as much more than merely a 'club' magazine, widening its appeal and scope, not just across the United Kingdom but throughout the world.

It must have seemed a daunting task to follow Nap's lead but several men and women have proven themselves worthy of the task over the years since. His immediate successor John Gordon, a celebrated wordsmith within the breed, was a rather more reluctant editor of this magazine; having stood in until a new permanent editor could be found and noting ruefully that 'the job was dumped in my lap'.

A succession of fine editors, including the late Alec Waters, who was one of the breed's most successful breeders too, guided the magazine through the 1970s. In the following decade, Ron Turnbull introduced the A5 format which still holds favour today and brought full colour to The Stafford's cover.

For the past twenty years the magazine has been under female tutelage, with Jackie James holding the reigns for most of the 1990s before handing them onto the present editor. Jean Loughborough will mark a significant anniversary of her own this year, as she celebrates ten very successful years in charge. Both she and her husband Peter have worked tirelessly to maintain the fine standards which readers have come to expect from the magazine and have overseen the development towards the full colour magazine you are reading now.

In closing, I would like to congratulate everyone who has helped to make The Stafford the great publication it is over its 60 years so far. Everyone who ever took the time to commit their thoughts to pen, typewriter and computer deserves thanks, as do all the editors who have lovingly arranged these articles and letters for the readers' enjoyment. And not forgetting all those people who simply committed their time to enjoying the Staffordshire Bull Terrier in and out of the show ring, and who are celebrated for doing so within these pages. May there be many more significant anniversaries for you all in the years to come.