Thanks to Martin Stabe for spotting this. Hartlepool Mail readers can now pick up their copy of the paper in church.

The parishioners will now be ‘getting their news from the pews,’ writes Tracey Walker over at the Hartlepool Mail today:

“The Mail has answered the prayers of people living in Hart, on the outskirts of Hartlepool, who were suffering a local news blackout after the Hart Post Office – which sold copies of the paper – closed in July.

The newspaper will now be delivered to St Mary Magdalene Church in the village after a plea from the Rev Janet Burbury and the Rev John Lund.”

Well, church membership and newspaper subscriptions are both down: it’s certainly one way of combining forces.