Good morning readers, and Happy Easter!

The Tribune has a few different birthdays. There’s the moment that I first started thinking about creating a new publication in Sheffield, in the middle of the second Covid lockdown in early January 2021. Or there’s the moment that we began our subscription service, the first test of whether people would actually pay to receive local news, on 6 July the same year. But if we were to pick just one date, it would be the 29th of March, three years ago today, when we sent out our very first newsletter.

Looking back at that newsletter now, I cringe a bit. But I probably shouldn’t. It was always bound to be a bit of a work in progress, but what I’d done was important. I had begun. At the time we had just 200 readers (if you were one of those early pioneers, I salute you) and we hadn’t even started our subscription service. Three years later, and everything has changed. We now have 23,000 email subscribers, 2,124 of whom are paying members. We also have two full time members of staff based in Sheffield and are part of a group of four newsletters (in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham) which are seen as signs of hope in a local news landscape where there has been little in recent years. It’s been quite a journey.

On our previous milestones we’ve taken you through a potted history of The Tribune, detailing our ups and downs and linking to our best and most important stories. But this time we thought we’d take a trip down memory lane with a difference. A journey to the less well known events in our short history. Below is a list of 10 memorable moments from The Tribune’s first three years. These are the moments that made us laugh, the moments that made us cry, the moments we realised we’d made a terrible mistake.

A story of love, political intrigue and revenge

From today’s sponsor: Abductions, murders in the palace and a plot to overthrow the aristocracy: Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra is an opera built around intrigue and revenge. On Thursday 18 April, you can watch a concert performance of this classical favourite in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall at a special discounted price. World-class orchestra The Hallé will be teaming up with Opera Rara and the Chorus of Opera North under the direction of the legendary Sir Mark Elder, providing one of the final chances to see Elder in action before he steps down as Music Director after 24 years. Click here to get your tickets, and make sure to enter themill18 in the promo code box to get 25% off.

Happy birthday to us!🎂

So here they are, an unofficial top ten of the most unforgettable moments of the last three years. I’ve categorised them using that classic three-way split: the good, the bad, and the ugly…

The Good

Subscription launch day

Other than our first newsletter, the biggest day in the history of The Tribune is 6 July 2021, the day we launched our subscription service. After all the hard work I had been putting in for weeks, this was the moment of truth. It seems strange to say now but we literally had no idea if people would pay for local journalism in Sheffield. I remember being worried that by the end of the day we would have just three members, and they would all have the surname Hayes. Instead we had an amazing 73 members, and by the end of the week had hit almost 250. The hard work wasn’t over though. Our first target was 700, the level we felt we needed to get to to make The Tribune sustainable over the long term. Now, three years after we sent out our first newsletter, we’re on three times that number.

On the buses with Ruth

One of the best things about The Tribune are the reader comments. After working in traditional local news for several years, where the Facebook comments section should have come with a health warning, it’s an absolute joy. But not all commenters are equal. Ruth Grimsley, a stalwart over many years of The Star’s letters page, has now become one of The Tribune’s most passionate commenters. In fact, the data shows she is the person who has commented on our stories more than anyone — except me. We normally get on fine, but on the issue of pedestrianisation, we occasionally clash. To have it out we decided to take a bus from her home in Tapton to town and find out what public transport is now like for those with limited mobility. The relationship between writers and readers has never been so close.

Fantastic freelancers

The Tribune’s success has meant we can give freelance journalists the opportunity to write brilliant long-form articles about this great city. One of our most prolific contributors has been David Bocking, whose superb work could well have been lost to the never-ending cuts at the Sheffield Telegraph were it not for us. Now, as well as writing pieces for The Tribune, he has his own newsletter specialising in nature, environment and active travel writing which has recently become a sustainable business. As well as David, in those early months we got brilliant pieces from Nicholas Booth on the nuclear bomb movie Threads and Sheffield’s most notorious criminal Charles Peace. And two of my personal favourites were Mollie Simpson’s piece about Ethel Haythornthwaite and Sophie Atkinson’s about why George Orwell hated Sheffield. Both Mollie and Sophie are now staff members at our parent company Mill Media Co.

Meeting our members

If I’m a halfway decent journalist it’s probably because it plays to my strengths. I like expressing myself with writing rather than speaking. The last time I’d done any kind of public speaking was when I was best man at a wedding in 2005 and by the time I gave my speech I was at least five pints deep. At The Tribune’s first ever members’ event at Hideaway last November, however, that was not an option. In the end, despite the trembling and faltering delivery, I got through my opening speech unscathed and the discussion which followed was pretty amazing. Seeing so many members of The Tribune tribe for the first time was a really moving moment and ultimate proof that people really value what we are doing. Thanks to everyone who came.

The Bad

Dan Walker and the sausage sandwich

This one is cheating a bit as it was from when I worked at The Star. But it happened shortly after we sent our first newsletter and it was the moment that I knew that I wanted out. That morning, BBC Breakfast presenter Dan Walker had asked co-presenter Louise Minchin what condiment she put on her sausage sandwiches, to which she had replied “marmalade”. I scoffed when I saw other titles running a “story” on Minchin’s revelation. A few hours later I was being asked to “cover it” myself. Marmalade on sausages is fairly unusual, for sure, but the subject of an article in Sheffield’s main daily paper? For me, it showed just how far local newspapers had sunk and how unsuitable the click-based model was for journalism. There had to be another way.

Our first legal threat

Victoria looked at me from across the table at our Union St co-work. “We might be getting sued,” she said. I gulped. Victoria had joined us a few months previously as The Tribune’s second full-time member of staff and had already shown incredible flair for investigations in her superb piece about the contested history and future of The Leadmill. But her subsequent investigation into management practices at foodhall Kommune had upped the ante significantly. This was uncharted territory for The Trib. In the first two years I’d never got anywhere near a legal threat. My journalism tends to err on the nice side and I don’t much like conflict. Victoria, however, has no such qualms. It’s turned into a bit of a good cop, bad cop routine — in the best possible way. Fortunately, legal threats are dealt with by our Manchester HQ, who called Kommune’s bluff. We’re yet to receive any kind of legal letter and Kommune is now under new management.

The saga of the shipping containers

Maybe running a newspaper all by myself went to my head a bit. Maybe I started to feel omnipotent, like a god. That’s my excuse for being so in favour of the shipping container development that appeared at the top of Fargate in 2022. “At a cost of just £300,000,” I wrote in May 2022. “The temporary venue feels like a cheap way of breathing life back into a struggling area in the short to medium term.” I can only apologise. As explained in excruciating detail by Victoria here, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and I was left with egg on my face. But maybe a plot twist is coming. This week, the company Stack got permission to build another container development next to the O2 Academy on Arundel Gate. I still think they’re quite a good idea actually. Maybe I should shut up now.

The Ugly

Sex shop shocker*

Picture the scene. I’ve spent the day walking around Attercliffe for a feature on how the seedy Sheffield suburb might be changed by a fancy new waterside development near the canal. Until now, I’ve not summoned up enough courage to walk into Hanky Panky, one of the high street’s most prominent sex shops. The mannequins in risqué lingerie are scary enough, but the fact the shop says MALE ENHANCEMENT PRODUCTS on the front in huge letters is absolutely mortifying. On my fourth trip past I finally bite the bullet, walk up to the door and push down the handle. It’s locked. Panicking, I turn around to walk away only to be confronted by a double decker bus of people all staring at me. I want the earth to swallow me up right there and then. It doesn’t.

Politics in pubs, part one

“I’m ‘avin’ wings,” says a gruff voice from across the pub. It’s a week night and not for the first time, local journalist Dan Hayes has found himself in the pub. The Graduate on Surrey Street is quiet, but the voice telling his fellow drinkers what he’s having for tea is unmistakable. It’s former Sheffield Council leader Terry Fox. As I introduce myself and swap emails, Fox snarls at me over his spicy chicken. I’m not immediately sure why Fox, his wife Denise, Bryan Lodge and several other long-standing Labour figures are all in the pub on that sultry September evening. However, it later becomes apparent that I have witnessed something akin to a Sheffield version of the famous ‘Granita pact’, and the group have all just guaranteed their expulsion from Labour by voting against the Local Plan. Later eight rebel Labour councillors would form a new grouping, the Sheffield Community Councillors, and become a very deliberate thorn in the side of the party’s new leadership. 

Politics in pubs, part two

Without a doubt the most insane thing that has happened to me over the last three years took place just last month. As members will no doubt remember, after attending a meeting of discussion group Politics in Pubs at the Red Lion on Charles Street, I got into a slanging match with one of the participants who then stole my notebook and shoved it in the sanitary towel bin in the ladies’ toilets. Yes, it wasn’t all a bad dream, that really happened. Earlier in the day my editor had questioned whether the story would provide the fireworks we were looking for. How wrong she was. A few weeks later I was invited back. They must be mad.

Here’s to the next three years…

Well, it certainly hasn’t been dull. Let me finish with a completely heartfelt word of thanks. It’s all down to you, our loyal readers, that any of this has been possible. Through the good, bad, and ugly, you’ve kept us going, with your encouragement, tip-offs, and great comments. And it would be wrong for me not to especially thank our paying members — you’re the ones who fund the journalism everyone enjoys.

If you haven’t yet signed up, you could absolutely make our special day by clicking that button below. The next three years will no doubt involve plenty more good things, as well as bad and ugly ones. Are there easier, better paying, jobs? Sure. But I can’t imagine doing anything else. 

* I may have turned my back on clickbait, but I still know how to write the headlines…

Things to do 📅

🎤 This Saturday, legendary Castlegate music venue Delicious Clam’s annual live reboot of a TV classic brings chaos to the much-loved format. Clams In Their Eyes, which is now in its sixth year, has been described as “Stars In Their Eyes on Psychedelics” and puts the public into the shoes of pop icons. This year it’s taking place in a new venue, FØRGE on Effingham Street, and is set to be bigger and better than ever! Tickets are £27 and doors open at 8pm.

🪕 This Easter weekend, the Sheffield Folk Sessions Festival brings eight pubs in and around Kelham Island with singing and instrumental sessions and workshops. 70 sessions and 140 hours of music will take place from Friday to Sunday at venues including Shakespeares, Dog and Partridge, Gardeners Rest, Fagans, Kelham Island Tavern, The Perch, The Crow Inn and The Forest. For a full list of everything that’s happening and where, see the Facebook page.

🦆 The annual Friends of the Porter Valley Duck Race returns on Easter Monday. Come and watch as 2,500 plastic ducks are launched into the Porter Brook, and encourage them on their way before they are collected at the finish line downstream. There will also be stalls selling books, crafts, pizza, cakes and more, as well as fairground stalls, dog agility training, and face painting. Buy your ducks from the FoPV website here — the race itself starts promptly at 2pm.