"Now for the uninitiated, there are basically three kinds of AA journals.  There is the AA National journals such as Grapevine from America, Share from England, Regmarker from South Africa.  Then there are the Intergroup or large Region Conurbations' newspapers such as Hello Central from Los Angeles and the Post from Washington.  And then there are what is known as the Independent Journals.

Sackville had been a great admirer of the Independent Journal out of Ireland called the Listowel Gleanings, produced and circulated by Dan H. of Listowel.  Dan ran this little journal which circulated worldwide.  For many years, it was much loved and much read.  But unfortunately in the middle '60s Dan died and with his death was the passing of the Listowel Gleanings. 

Sackville thought that something ought to happen in England,  and during 1967 he constantly was suggesting to various people why don’t you start an independent journal in England.  Why not an independent journal?  At last he got round to me and suggested that I should do something about it. 

In typical AA fashion, I decided to delegate it to somebody who was very keen. We got ready to produce a journal called Contact, which we thought a suitable name and we got a little bit of material together.  And the other person who had all the experience was ready and flying to go until one night.  There was a knock at my door and his wife stood there with some pathetic sheaf of papers and said "my husband has decided he doesn’t want to go through with the publication of this journal and he’s asked me to bring the copy back to you."

I immediately contacted Sackville and said what do you think? I’ve been let down.  He responded at once by telling me that I hadn’t been let down and AA wouldn’t be let down if I decided to go ahead and publish straight away.  And so reluctantly, myself in company with Jane Coffey a non-alcoholic who is a friend of AA.  We decided to try to publish and circulate a journal.  It all had to happen in a week. 

And we decided to call it Bristol Fashion for the very simple reason that we had discovered that the nautical term 'Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion' did not just apply to the  tidiness of the ships but also applied to the fact that Bristol Fashion meant a ship specially designed keel that was able to lie up on a mud flat or rock bottom and it was the rock bottom part of that definition that intrigued us. 

And so, in June 1968, the very first publication of Bristol Fashion took place.  25 copies, a sordid Roneo machine... myself, I’d never handled one before and I’ve never felt such frustration with any piece of machinery in my life.  It did nothing but spurt ink at me, but we eventually got 25 copies out and a copy was duly sent to Sackville in Dublin.  Upon receipt he sent us graciously a telegram which read....

“Thank you for your copy of Bristol Fashion.  You have set yourself a standard beneath which you cannot ever, ever, possibly fall.  Sackville.” 

Twenty years on we value his sentiments and we value his continuing support down the years throughout his remaining life.  From 25 copies the first circulation the maximum we have ever reached with Bristol Fashion is just over 1,000 copies.”