The Saint is Back

It’s been exactly eighteen months since The Saint was last released in a printed format. That’s fourteen issues, and roughly four hundred pages, where hard-working student journalists have been unable to see the fruits of their labour realised in physical form. We are delighted, then, that you are able to hold in your hand a copy of The Saint’s 2021 Fresher’s Mag.

We are delighted too with what this symbolises: a return to the kind of normality which we have longed for throughout the pandemic. This year, due to the vaccination programmes of countries around the world, and, confident that the most vulnerable in the United Kingdom have been double-jabbed, we can finally go back to doing the things we were not able to do over the past year and a half. Once more we can discuss complex ideas in tutorials face-to-face, eat as a collective within halls, play competitive sport together, and, perhaps most importantly, we can socialise in large groups.

We at The Saint are relieved on this particular account as well. When the committee elected us at the end of last academic year, we were unaware of many of the difficulties we would face in the first few months. In the creation of this magazine, we have had to lay the groundwork for a return to print with little to no expert advice and coordinate an almost entirely new team across multiple continents. Most difficult of all we have had to navigate the inner workings of one of the messiest websites known to student journalism ‒ communicating all the while through the medium of Facebook messenger. It is clear now, to us, that there is no substitute for in-person working. We cannot wait to follow Westminster’s advice, get back into The Saint office, and to mix with our fellow journalists.

We also know that the disappearance of the newspaper from the streets of St Andrews can only be a bad thing for a town with such an illustrious journalistic history. Our own paper, rebranded as a tabloid called The Saint in 1997, can trace its printed history all the way back to 1962, when it was called Quorum, and then Aien. In 1984 it was once again renamed ‒ as the St Andrews University Chronicle ‒ which lasted until the final 1997 re-christening.

Throughout that period, printed rags have come and gone, but The Saint has survived. We feel extremely privileged to be the custodians of this paper as it makes its way out of semi-enforced hibernation, and back out into the Scottish sunlight.

Now, teething problems largely out of the way, comes the fun part: bringing not only the most important town and gown News stories to you, the students, but also the best Viewpoint, Features, Money, News, Events, Sport, and Arts and Culture writing the University has to offer, from its longest-running, and best-respected newspaper.

We are excited to welcome this year’s freshers to St Andrews, and hope that many of you will join us.

Linden & Olivia