The Surrey Leader

When I was growing up in Cloverdale, the building on the northwest corner of 176th Street and 57th Avenue was home to the Surrey Leader. Sometime in the 1980’s the Surrey Leader relocated to a new building and their old building became a pawn shop and now La Belle Vie, a retail shop, is located here.

The Surrey Leader used to be a subscription only weekly newspaper, delivered on Thursdays. My parents had a subscription for many years until my mother cancelled it sometime in the mid or late seventies. It used to come in folded format, similar to the format still used today by the Vancouver Sun.

Two or three years after my mother cancelled her subscription, a copy of the Surrey Leader arrived in the mailbox. My mother phoned their office to find out what was going on. The receptionist told her the newspaper was now being delivered for free to all houses in Surrey and asked her how she liked it. “I don’t like it at all,” my mother responded. “The reason I cancelled my subscription a few years ago is because all your newspaper ever writes about is abortion and the school board. And after all these years, the newspaper I received today, that’s all you’re still writing about.” So my mother was an unhappy recipient of the free newspaper. We referred to it as the Shitty Leader.

Over the years the newspaper has transformed to a tabloid style of print and after all these years no longer devotes half its space to abortion, though the quality of the other articles is debatable. It eventually became a twice a week newspaper and then three times a week. How much of the Shitty Leader does one need dropped on their doorstep? I think it has again returned to a twice a week paper. I’m really not sure because delivery is sketchy.

When I was growing up the Surrey Leader included photos and articles of locals getting married. As I reached my late teens and early twenties I recognized a lot of former classmates featured in the wedding section. Somehow this feature has long since been dropped from the current edition. There were more articles about people in the community doing good things or interesting things. More articles about people involved in the arts, local kids doing good in Scouts or Guides, and high school band concerts. I think this had more to do with the weekly newspaper. The Province and the Sun, daily newspapers, covered the news. A weekly newspaper didn’t cover news so much because it was usually stale news by the time it hit the mailboxes, but it certainly covered community events.

The current Leader, covers some events, but its more news than coverage of local people.