Like so many village magazines the Walkern Journal has evolved from a church magazine. The earliest example we have in the archive dates to August 1944, this is a church magazine that covers Walkern and surrounding parishes.

There is a gap in our archive until 1958 where we have just one copy for August . It is still predominately a church magazine but some non-secular articles are beginning to appear and there are advertisers.

Again we have a fairly long gap to our next issue in April 1972. The magazine is now a four page, A4 format magazine printed on high quality glossy paper. Michael Overman was responsible for resurrecting the magazine and continued to be it’s edito until 1984 and then for a second stint in 1987/88.

From here on we have almost a complete set of issues in the archive. It changed in 1999 to an A5 format with twenty pages and featured a sketch by John Soanes on the front cover. There followed a series of sketches by John on the covers until 1997 when the magazine reverted back to a four page A4 format. By 1988 about half the magazine was given over to village related articles and the advertising had increased considerably.

The editorship has changed many time since 1972, here is a list of the editors