Since 1855, the Herts Advertiser has been there with you.

Right now we reach more of you in print and via digital than we ever have before.

But now more than ever, our work to inform and entertain you is in danger – and we need your help to build a sustainable future for our title.

Over the years we’ll have made you think, made you smile, made you angry, made you proud of where we live.

We started life from a small office in the Clock House at the base of the city’s Clock Tower, close to where our offices are today.

Some of the diverse events the newspaper has covered over the past 160 years have included the IRA bomb attack on the Alban Arena in 1991, the 19th century fight to save and restore the Clock Tower, the campaign against a Tesco supermarket on the Eversheds site some 10 years ago and St Albans becoming a city in 1977.

We wrote about the founding of the Ryder Cup in 1927, the Verulamium archaeological excavations of the 1930s, the funeral of comedian Eric Morecambe in 1984, the opening of Britain’s first naturist club in Bricket Wood in 1930, the birth of St Albans City FC in 1908, and the introduction of a disastrous one-way system designed to solve the city’s traffic problems in October 1988.

Today, with journalism already under pressure and coronavirus making finances even tighter, more and more communities are no longer represented by a local newspaper. Corruption goes unpunished. Bad decisions go unchecked. Fake news spreads uncorrected on social media.

To stop that happening in our region, we are inviting readers of our websites to give their financial support to our work. You can contribute any amount you like, as a one-off or a recurring contribution.

I believe that accurate, useful, honest, local journalism is vital to our future and I know you believe that too.

That’s why I hope you will help us. Every single gesture of support will keep us fighting for you and our region.

Thank you

Anne Suslak, Editor