In 1983, at age 26, when I departed as Leader Newspapers’ Manager at Northcote, their associate company Broadglen Publishing Company gave me a ‘going away’ present. My own newspaper, News-Pix Weekender.

Broadglen had been publishing this free spoiler newspaper in the Bacchus Marsh-Macedon Ranges region to fight a competitor, the Telegraph group operated by independent publisher Joe Reivers. The Telegraph had been founded by airline pilot Alan Patton.

News-Pix Weekender was a cheaply produced offset tabloid designed entirely to protect its existing titles: the Broadmeadows Observer, Essendon Gazette, Keilor Messenger and Sunbury Regional News. Editorial content was chiefly photos of local people by snapper Geoff Foletta.

Broadglen Managing Director Ray Foletta took me to lunch at the Tullamarine Airport Travelodge restaurant. I agreed to have a go at making the title work, and to print the newspaper on Saturday nights at the Leader group’s Westernport printery at Koo-Wee-Rup. I soon discovered that advertising support simply didn’t exist, and my series of the newspaper lasted exactly one issue. No harm done.

Broadglen’s story was a fascinating one. In the days up to 1956, Ralph Wilson, a 64-year-old English-born journalist and printer, has been working at Leader’s Northcote head office, writing on a lineage basis for the Coburg Courier and Brunswick Sentinel titles.

“Always alert for fresh copy, he turned his attention in the area north of Coburg just awakening from the sleep of post-war years – Broadmeadows,” said a 21-year souvenir published on April 20, 1977.

“Snippets from council and other sources began to appear in the Coburg Courier. But the people who should have been reading those Ralph Wilson reports were neglected because the Courier’s distribution stopped short of the Broadmeadows Shire boundaries.

“It was in this climate that Bob Grant, as news editor of the Leader group of newspapers, began reporting the events of Broadmeadows Council on Monday nights.

“In the early morning hours he had to handwrite ‘lead’stories from the council meeting and have them available at Northcote for publication in Tuesday’s Coburg Courier. It wasn’t long before stories from Broadmeadows were taking front-page prominence.

“Ralph Wilson suggested to the Leader management that they start a newspaper in Broadmeadows or at least extend the Courier into the Glenroy and Fawkner areas.

“The proposal failed to interest the Leader organisation which at that time was in the throes of rapid and costly expansion with other publications in the northern suburbs.

“Early in 1956 the messages from the Broadmeadows drums were getting louder with the words “this the place for a local newspaper.

“Ralph Wilson and Bob Grant then began discussions with Ray Foletta, who was advertising production manager of Leader and it was agreed that they all put themselves out of a job and abandon the substance of their careers for the shadow of a newspaper enterprise in Broadmeadows.

“Two other Leader people were also recruited for the plunge – Perce Robertson, who has employed on a casual basis for selling tradesmen ads and writing local news items; and Mr George Elliman, an assistant in the advertising department.

“The name for the new paper came from Ralph Wilson – after the London Observer. At that stage in the birth of a newspaper saga early in 1956 the trio at least had a name and expertise in their respective fields. They also had enthusiasm, faith and courage – but definitely no money.

“However, the severance pat from their former employer enabled them to spend a couple of weeks selling advertisements, arranging a system of door-to-door distribution, lining up a printer, gathering news stories and attending to the multitude of overheads that accompany all business enterprise large or small.

“The partners insisted on clients signing an order book for their advertising support and when the total began to grow they marched eagerly to the fledgling Glenroy branch of the Commonwealth Bank and proudly displayed their security to the manager, Mr Joe Lonergan.

“He accepted the bookfull of promises and provided a £400 overdraft for one month.

“A room at Ray Foletta’s home in Coburg became a headquarters for the preparation and layout of the first issue. Branch offices in the wide and sparsely housed areas of the sprawling, booming Broadmeadows were the rather nondescript cars the partners drove.

“The first issue ‘went to bed’ at Standard Newspapers, Cheltenham, on a Tuesday night. The flatbed rotary presses rolled on Wednesday morning and the edition began finding its way into letterboxes in the afternoon.

“There was no time for any celebration – much work was waiting to be done for issue No. 2 and 3 and four …”

The Broadglen name came from the two growth areas – Broadmeadows and Glenroy.

A 2006 supplement in the Hume Leader, published by News Corp, commented: “Relations between Broadglen and Leader were amicable with Leader printing the group’s papers and taking a shareholding in Braodglen, finally becoming a buy-out.

“The Leader’s owners, the Mott family, sold to The Herald & Weekly Times in 1986 and the H&WT was taken over by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd.”