Yorkshire Post: Sports Fan

An Olympic Games hopeful bundles into a Leeds newsagents, only to be met by a new shopkeeper from The Smoke, bemused by the Yorkshire Post.

Getting favourite television personalities to help create a favourite brand was part and parcel of 1970s television advertising, and that well- established regional newspaper the Yorkshire Post chose well with Youtha Joyce and Arthur Mullard. Just establishing themselves in two popular comedy television series, ‘Man About the House’ and ‘Romany Jones’, the Londoners made the perfect couple to establish the national credentials of the Yorkshire Post.

One of 21 provincial newspapers that were founded before 1776, the Yorkshire Post has declined significantly since this advert in 1973. Although covering the largest area of all regional newspapers, it only just scraps into the top 20 for sales. Youtha Joyce was known for playing comic stereotypical wives, wonderfully and with great wit. But it is thought that a fear of being typecast contributed to the alcoholism which led to her tragic death from hepatitis in 1980, aged just 53, after years of alcoholism.