The Gatshire Gazette remains owned by the Watt family. At times, they have tried branching out into other businesses, the nature of which it has frequently been possible to deduce from the newspaper’s contents. A series of articles on doing more exercise and not using the car for short journeys, apparently evidence of the paper’s concern for the wellbeing of both its readers and their environment, would in fact be a reliable indicator that the Watts had just bought up a company that manufactured bicycles. A prolonged and eminently trivial correspondence in the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section on the merits and demerits of tea and coffee (‘Dear Sir, I was wondering if any of your readers are aware of the benefits of a good cup of tea…’; ‘Dear Sir, In response to the person who extolled the virtues of tea the other day, I would like to suggest that on many occasions coffee may be a better choice…’; ‘Dear Sir, While I know little about coffee, I wholeheartedly agree with the comments from a previous correspondent concerning tea…’; ‘Dear Sir, With all due respect to tea-drinkers, I prefer coffee, for the following reasons…’; ‘Dear Sir, Tea is a Great British Drink; Coffee is for Yanks and Continentals. End of story.’; ‘Dear Sir, As a life-long coffee fan, it pains me to see so many tea-drinkers going about with their heads in the sand, impotently attempting to deny that coffee has usurped tea as Britain’s favourite drink…’; ‘Dear Sir, If coffee is replacing tea as Britain’s favourite drink, we tea-drinkers have to stand up and be counted. We cannot allow our national traditions to be eroded…’; ‘Dear Sir, Tea-drinking is nothing more than an obsolescent vestige of colonialism…’; ‘Dear Sir, Can I be the only person in Gatshire who enjoys both tea and coffee?...’) would be a sure sign that the Watts were now dabbling in the beverage industry.

The present proprietor of The Gatshire Gazette Mr Reginald Watt. His principal contribution to the family business has been the most unscrupulous advertising policy in the newspaper’s history, and not everyone is happy with how he has gone about it. Nobody minded the buses. Or the trains. It was when Mr Watts approached the fire service that some people started asking questions. But the money he offered was good, and so it came about that all Gatshire fire engines were (and still are) adorned with the words: The Gatshire Gazette: For Burning News. It was not long before similar treatment was given to Gatshire’s police cars (The Gatshire Gazette: An Arresting Read) and even, yes, ambulances (The Gatshire Gazette: First on the Scene). The controversy this provoked was understandable. But it was nothing compared to the furore that greeted the infamous deal with the Union of Gatshire Undertakers and is the reason most of the hearses in the county bear the message The Gatshire Gazette: Get Buried In It.