published on October 28, 2024 in info

Were saying thank you to the dedicated newsagents who promote our paper and help keep loyal reade

THEY are the unsung heroes of The Sun.

Day in and day out, dedicated newsagents promote our paper and help keep loyal readers informed. So now, we’re saying thank you.

Click here to nominate your favourite charity as we give away £1MILLION

To mark our 50th birthday, we’ve picked the top 50 retailers who have gone the extra mile to champion The Sun and launch charitable initiatives in their areas.

In first place is Telegraph News in Swadlincote, Derbys, which has sold nore than TWO MILLION copies of The Sun.

As part of our birthday celebrations, we gave retailer Mark Titterton and his team - along with the other top 15 winners - a £250 voucher to donate to a chosen charity. The shop was also rebranded with our logo. Mark said: “We’re proud to rename our store as The Sun.”

All of The Sun Top 50 stores will receive a special commemorative Sun 50 plaque to thank them for their hard work.

The other top 15 Sun stores are:

2) J & R MCINNES, DALRY, SCOTLAND

Dalry newsagent Pauline Devlin’s daughters Rebecca and Jessica have collected over 10,000 of The Sun's Books for Schools tokens to help children and schools in the local area.

They achieved this huge feat by putting a voucher drop box on the counter and encouraging all customers to drop their vouchers in the box when they visited the shop.

They even managed to convince non-Sun customers to purchase the newspaper and donate their tokens.

As a result, they were able to help three local schools; Dalry Primary, St Paladuis and a primary school in Irvine.

3) PREMIER BROADWAY CONVENIENCE, EDINBURGH

Linda and Denis Williams, owners of Premier Broadway convenience store, enjoy working with and supporting the community.

When Denis heard about a local heart attack and the increased survival rates when victims have access to defibrillators, they took the decision to support the local community by having a defibrillator fitted outside the store.

Denis says: “Even if he could only save one life, then it would be well worth it”.

The approach to heart health extends to a very successful deli in store serving healthy food at the lowest price in the area.

4) LYTTLETON CONVENIENCE STORE & POST OFFICE, STOCKTON-ON-TEES

Owners Nicola Ryder and Diljit Atwal have recently opened a new Community Café as a place for pensioners of their community to come along, meet and socialise with each other as well as picking up a copy of their favourite daily paper.

The store also delivers papers daily to The Whitehouse Care Home in Hartburn ensuring that no one misses out on their dose of news, serving a key role within the community.

They also raise funds for local charities, in particular Daisy Chain who offer a range of services for local families and children with autism.

5) NEWSMARKET, KENT

Since downloading our Sun Savers app to see what all the fuss was about, Praful Patel, the owner of Newsmarket in Folkstone, won a football kit which he donated to local junior team, Dynamo United FC.

They're a group of enthusiastic year 7’s who consistently make the community proud with their team spirit and achievements.

6) RACA GREEN NEWS, KNOTTINGLEY

Robert and Helen Bellamy have been at Racca Green Newsagents since 1968.

Helen is no stranger to The Sun having once featured as 'Newsagent of the day' in the paper.

Robert and Helen started off managing the shop and later bought it in 1995 when they saw an advert for the store in the paper.

And they have one regular customer, Fred, who is in his eighties and not only buys The Sun every day - but walks four miles every morning to be at the store for 5am.

He insists on always carrying the papers inside and will not let Helen carry any.

The store continues to be a community hub, supported and frequented by the local community.

7) FREEMAN’S, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Graham and Janice Freeman opened G&S Freeman in High Wycombe January 16, 1966.

In June 1967 they set up a daily ward trolley in Wycombe General Hospital selling newspapers to patients.

The trolley service operated every day except Christmas Day.

In addition to selling papers, Graham and Janice would do a bit of shopping for patients and place the occasional bet.

The trolley service operated for 40 years until the hospital trust invested in a purpose-built shop and cafe on site.

Now owned and managed by Stephen Freeman, the store has supported the Thames Valley

Air Ambulance with a collection point in store.

8) MEET AND DEEP, TWICKENHAM

For 20 years Meet and Deep has been at the centre of the local community.

The store used to open 364 days of the year. But after a regular customer knocked at the family home one Christmas Day and begged for the store open to enable him to purchase a phone card so that he could make a special festive call to his mother, the store now opens 365 days a year.

Every Christmas Day, the store serves mince pies and drinks to the community.

This went viral on Facebook leading to donations for the mince pies from as far afield as the USA.

9) SHOP FOR LESS, CANNOCK

Nick Craddock manages his mother’s business.

Since Nick’s father passed away due to cancer, the store has collected for the local St Giles Hospice and has donated over £3,000.

Nick also supports the local primary school, Norton Canes Primary, supporting fundraising, raffles and fetes.

In addition to selling and delivering newspapers, the store also now delivers groceries to the elderly.

10) A JOHNSTON & SONS, DUNDEE

The shop, owned by Uniz Khan, is one of the best performing independent stores in Scotland and continues to champion The Sun brand.

11) WOODVALE NEWS, BELFAST

Woodvale News is one of the best performing independent retailers in Northern Ireland.

The store is also a key link to the local community and strongly supports the local junior football club.

12) SNA NEWSMARKET, SOUTHAMPTON

Owner Sarju Sonchhatla has run the store and worked very closely with the local community for over 30 years.

Sarju has participated in various charitable projects around the area and works with the local authorities to help keep the Bitterne area safe from crime.

The store operates a delivery service for elderly customers, and will regularly check in with customers if they haven’t seen or heard from them, a service greatly appreciated by many of his customers.

13) NEWS DIRECT, PERTH

In addition to the newsagents and post office, owner Ian Morgan operates a fleet of vehicles delivering the news to homes and businesses across the area.

The business continues to thrive, extending into the neighbouring building with more space for his loyal and hardworking staff (one of whom continues to deliver the papers well into his 70s!) to sort copies for each of the paper rounds.

14) WINGHAM NEWSAGENTS, CANTERBURY

Wingham newsagents has been serving the local community for over 100 years.

For owner Kerry McGorrin the store and community have been a huge part of her life too.

Kerry first worked delivering papers for the store back in the 1980s, her mother then owned the store for over 13 years, and Kerry has gone from ‘paper girl’ to owner, taking charge of the store for the last six years.

15) COGAN’S NEWS, CARMARTHEN

Cogan’s News, with three stores in the Carmarthen area, has been owned and managed by the same family for three generations.

Beverley Garcia has owned this store for over 40 years.

Her Grandfather opened the original store, and her father was one of the first members of the NFRN, The Federation of Independent Retailers.

Stores 16-50, who all received a commemorative Sun 50 plaque:

16) DIAMOND’S, BALLYMENA

Eugene Diamond has been in business for over 40 years now and plays a big role in the community.

This was recognised when The Sun presented him with a copy of the paper from August 8, 1979, the day he first opened the store.

17) HOWELL'S NEWSAGENTS, PORTH

Ian, the owner of Howell’s, has been a huge supporter of The Sun and his local community, helping to organise a town carnival in 2008/09.

Ian was keen to get people from The Sun to come along and asked for their attendance.

To his surprise The Sun sent him free gifts and The Sun bus for the event.

They went from 120 Sun sales on a Saturday to close to 1,000, and an extra 10 sales daily throughout the week.

All money raised on the day (£400) with the help from The Sun, was donated to a local charity.

18) DUNSTON NEWS, GATESHEAD

This shop has been in operation since 1929 as a newsagent, selling The Sun every day for the last 50 years!

Over 700,000 copies of The Sun newspaper have been sold from the shop.

19) VILLAGE STORES, REDBOURN

This store helps support their local community in many ways, including donating a percentage of their sales to charity.

Village Stores selects a new charity every couple of months so that they can support as many as possible.

It also sponsors Redbourn in Bloom, a very successful horticultural society that enhances the village through planting schemes and local events.

20) LONDIS, CHESHAM

Howzat! Hitesh Modi, the owner of this store was once a world-famous cricket player who has played in three world cups

The shop is a great advocate of The Sun and has a booming home news delivery service.

21) FORBES NEWSAGENT, DUNDEE

This store is a sporting celeb hang out.

As huge supporters of Dundee Football Club, the store has been visited by many of the club’s past and present stars, most notably Claudio Caniggia, as well as Craig Brown and talkSPORT’s Jim White.

22) DAWN’S FOOD STORE, BISHOP’S STORTFORD

This store has been passionately selling The Sun for 40 years and is another celeb hot-spot with famous customers through the years including Mike Reid and singers from Blue and The Prodigy.

The store always looks for innovative ways to grow and encourage repeat custom launching their very own garden centre in store.

23) DAY-TODAY, AIRDRIE

Jean has worked for Day-Today for 13 years.

She loves The Sun and gets involved with every promotion.

Her husband buys the paper every single day and last October she was delighted that she won £50 through the paper.

She always collects and scans her papers through the Sun Savers app and to date has saved a whopping £900 on holidays.

She can’t stop telling her customers how great it is.

She is off on her holiday to Bulgaria this year and is using her money from her Sun Savers wallet to shop in duty free!

24) ONE STOP, LEAMINGTON SPA

This store was featured on BBC 1's "Turn Back Time: The High Street" as a 1970s family-run store. They sold The Sun with gusto through from the 1970s to 2019.

25) CULTS KEYSTORE, ABERDEEN

The owners of Keystore in Cults love to support their local community.

They often have collections for charity, run raffles and offer help at local schools.

They helped raise money for the ARI roof garden – a roof garden that was built at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary so that some of their most unwell patients could be taken outside to get some fresh air and enjoy a calming environment outside of the busy hospital.

26) PREMIER EXPRESS STORE, STOCKTON-ON-TEES

Premier on Durham Road is all about giving back to the community.

They have always been big supporters of the local RNIB (a charity for the blind) with customers to support them through regular collections.

They also are keen to make sure their local community don’t miss out on their daily papers, so they deliver to OAPs at Maple Care Home and Cypress Court.

27) DARRINGTON VILLAGE STORE, PONTEFRACT

Gail and Joe Jenkins have run the village shop since 2012.

This is the only shop within the five surrounding villages and has been listed on record as a newsagent since the 1920s.

Gail started working for the newsagents in 1971 as a papergirl and has always enjoyed the news as it brings the community together to talk.

Gail and Joe always get involved with charity and community events, selling raffle tickets for the Prince of Wales trust, local football teams and campaigning to get Christmas lights for the village.

28) HEYSIDE NEWS, OLDHAM

Ruby took over store in July 2018 and has since turned the store around by having a warm welcoming, positive can-do attitude and by restocking the store with a wonderful variety of products catering for the community needs.

Not only does Ruby run the store but amazingly, she is also about to undergo surgery giving her kidney to her Mum.

A true Sun champion!

29) BONBON CONVENIENCE, GRAYS

This store is 60 years old and has been delivering papers to local care homes for 20 years, including Whitecroft Care Home.

They support charities such as BAPS (British Association of Paediatric Surgeons) and various other charities through selling bags and books.

All donations go to the charity with the store raising on average £1k per year!

30) WILLIAMS OF AUDLEM, CREWE

Judith Evans the owner of Williams of Audlem Ltd is the fourth generation of newsagents in the 150 year old store.

Since taking ownership Judy has developed a retrofit look for the store and on top of this grown the store’s gift offering since taking ownership in 2013.

Judy freely gives up her time to the community with local charity collections, organising fundraisers and general help and support, including support in computer applications, advice for her elderly customers or sometimes just a good chat to lighten someone’s day.

The store has sold The Sun since day one and continues to deliver daily to the local community.

31) BELL'S CORNER, CARRICKFERGUS

Bell’s has been a newsagents for over 100 years, since 1918, and actually printed local newspapers.

It is in the centre of the historical town of Carrickfergus.

The current owner Samantha has had the business since 1972.

32) GREAT GLEN POST OFFICE, LEICESTER

This store is a family run business which has been serving the local community for over 50 years.

It delivers newspapers to local grammar schools and supports charities through collections in store.

Collections have been donated to charities including Guide Dogs and the local hospice 'Rainbows' which provides support to life-limited children and their families.

33) THE VILLAGE STORE, SUFFOLK

This store has supported many charities over the years by having both collection tins at the counter and bins on the shop floor for collections of towels and food for animal shelters.

Some of the charities they support are Dog's Trust, Air Children's Ambulances, Marie Curie and Topcats - a local charity that supports children and young adults with additional needs.

34) CENTRA, LARNE

Raymond loves to give back to his community and regularly lets groups use the shop, one group even did a marathon bike ride to raise funds and awareness.

Just last week the local Irish Dancing School raised £820 for their club, raising funds with the support of the store.

Raymond and his father have cycled 1,000 miles around Ireland and raised £14,000 for Action Cancer and a local special needs school. The kindness doesn't end there - to top it off they have an annual tradition of providing Christmas hampers to those in need.

35) SIMMONDLEY POST OFFICE, GLOSSOP

This is one of the oldest buildings in which The Sun is sold.

Glossop Municipal Market opened up 10 July 1845 and Rick Ingham has recently opened up his Simmondley newsagents in the building.

36) KEELINGS NEWSAGENTS, WINCHCOMBE

Open since 1960, store owner John Keeling has sold The Sun since it was established and has sold the paper everyday it has been published.

37) SULEMAN (ALFY’S) NEWSAGENTS, GLASGOW

If you don’t recognise this store, where have you been?

The store is owned and run by Ralph Suleman, though many people still hope to meet Still Game’s Navid.

The store was used as Navid’s store in Still Game and has been frequented by all of the cast over the years.

38) FAMILY SHOPPER, BLANTYRE

Owner Shahid Razzaq makes monthly donations to a variety of local charities and also sponsors two local boxing clubs and three local football teams.

39) HAMILTON NEWS, BELFAST

Owner Judith Mercer supports many local charities and fundraising events.

The store has raised over £1,000 this year for the local pensioners group and is currently raising money for a defibrillator for the local community.

40) L & C REA, NEWMAINS

Tony Rea and his staff are pillars of the local community and have raised £500 for the recent Newmains Gala Day.

41) GODDARD AND WHITE, BOLSOVER

Owner John White has over 50 years of service delivering newspapers, including The Sun, in Bolsover and the surrounding villages.

He’s been with us since the start and his staff appreciate his work.

42) Barra News

Seven retailers have their newspapers flown into the Scottish Isle of Barra with the plane landing on the beach every day on one of the world's most scenic airstrips that can only be used when the tide is out.

It still does not stop the island getting their papers!

43) JIM FISH, WHOLESALE STAFF MEMBER

Jim Fish is the longest serving staff member in Wholesale.

He currently works part time for Menzies but has been in various roles and depots over his 57 years at the company.

44) R Craddock (News Shop) Cannock

Owner Nick Craddock makes the list for the second time.

He was born above this store 50 years ago making him the same age as The Sun.

His family have been a big part of the community since his father left the navy and opened the store.

45) Little Aston News, Little Aston

Store owner Dipak Vilani provides outstanding customer services by delivering newspapers in hard-to-reach rural areas meaning his customers never out.

46) Filby Post Office, Filby

Filby Post Office has been a family-run business for over 50 years, with owner Adrian Thompson and his family running the service from 1963.

47) Rushbrook Newsagents, Erith

This store used to be called ‘Read’s Newsagents’ which is a unique essential newspaper name.

48) Singh’s of Sheffield, Sheffield

Store owner Mandeep Khaira is a leading retail digital innovator with a live chat for customer service.

The store is heavily involved in the community and has launched an app to communicate in-store offers to customers as well as charitable causes, driving awareness of their Macmillan coffee morning and newspaper offers.

49) Broadway Premier, Penrhyn Bay

John Parkinson, who's been the shop's boss for 47 years, was held up in a knife raid for a second time in 15 months.

Staff grappled with the knifeman before he fled the shop.

We support all retailers who face threats and intimidation and continue to go about their work.

John and his colleague Shirley have raised well over £3,000 for charity, they support local schools and clubs as well as delivering groceries to their local community.

John shared with The Sun how Shirely gives up her time to help their elderly customers, supporting them on a daily basis. This shows how much this retailer goes above and beyond its day-to-day work.

50) Albany Road Post office, Cardiff

Mark Dudden has expanded Albany Road Post Office’s Home News Delivery offer following a successful leafleting campaign. It offers a unique proposition with his extensive news and magazine section.

His reputation as a news and magazine specialist has meant enthusiasts travel more than 50 miles away to visit.

His partner Dee runs the store with her father Vyas Sharma.

Now we want YOU to nominate a charity for a Sun grant.

£1million up for grabs

GO online now to nominate a charity and apply for a Sun grant. Tell us in 400 words what it does, why you love it and what sum you think it needs, from £2,000 to £20,000 – but we want to help as many groups as possible.

Were saying thank you to the dedicated newsagents who promote our paper and help keep loyal reade

Click here to nominate your favourite charity as we give away £1MILLION

£1million up for grabs

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