Back on the street:
Such times we've been living through... The classic science fiction story The War of the Worlds foretold of Earth being invaded and overcome by aliens, with fire-spreading spacecraft all over the place, such chaos as you invariably get when Martians descend. But the pandemic which has engulfed us has not been fictional, though it has been every bit as unimagineable, and has affected us all in one way or another. In the wider unfolding of the awfulness of the last four months the travails of Backtrack seem of minor consequence, yet they are what immediately concern us in the pages of this magazine.
The 'lockdown' was imposed not long after April issue had gone into general distribution to all the regular outlets in the customary quantities, but very swiftly non-essential shops were ordered to close, these including the majority of high street retailers and railway station bookstalls from which BT was principally peddled. This left a large number of readers unable to purchase copies in their usual way. Direct sales from this office consequently spiralled and of course we were happy to supply copies for as long as the stock lasted, but that was not very long as obviously we had no prior warning of the changing circumstances about to hit us. Aware that a considerable volume of magazines was out there somewhere, our distributor at Warners investigated whether some copies could be recovered but unfortunately that didn't prove practical.
With the extent of the functioning retail world so greatly diminished, it was inevitable that the print run for May would have to be very much smaller. I did take a greater number of copies for direct sales but again the demand cleared them out; enquiries about an extra print run revealed that the cost would make that an unfeasible proposition economically, the same applying to the June issue.
Thus it has come about that those three issues - April, May and June - have become sold out and are thus likely to be hard to find in thefuturesecond-hand market. I am really sorry that some ofyou have been disappointed in your quest to obtain them, especially when you have been saying that you have every issue since Vol.1 No.1 in 1987, but the upheavals which have beset us (and others in the magazine world) have been exceptional to say the very least of it and I don't think we could have done any more as we strove to cope with them and still keep BTgoing through it all.
Various adjustments had to be made for 'operational' reasons, not least by our subscription and service providers at Warners Group whose staff quickly set up offices at home and who have done sterling work in promoting subscriptions to the magazine as an alternative to not finding a shop to buy it from - and in achieving a very healthy increase in numbers which has helped to boost sales figures when greatly needed. Another adjustment to the settled order came in April when our printers The Amadeus Press had to temporarily withdraw in view of the situation, but the printing side of the Warners Group helpfully stepped in to create the May and June issues for us until Amadeus was able to return enthusiastically to action for the July magazine. Other difficulties have been more local in their inconvenience: the closure for a while of my local newsagent also removed the only photocopier in town but luckily the post office in the next village had one which it was able to make available to me. Then my local post office was closed for a few weeks which meant I had no access to the PO Box; fortunately the splendid local posties realised the importance of the Backtrack mail, retrieved it from the Box for me and delivered it personally on their rounds!

One change we did have to make, and one you will be well aware of, is that in June the decision was taken to cut the size of BT from 64 pages to 48 (actually the size of it when it first started). This was driven by the reduced sales options open to us and consequent reduced revenue, with the need to cut our cloth accordingly. Dear readers, you have been very accommodating about this and, further, have been generous enough to say that what is more important is that the standard of the magazine has been maintained. I did promise that the magazine would revert to 64 pages just as soon as possible and I hope to be able to say more about this next month.
Now, as I write this in mid-July, life is gradually but steadily returning to our streets, and how welcome a sight it has been to see local shops, national retailers and, yes, our favourite pubs reopening their doors. With more outlets now trading it should be becoming easier to buy BTover the counter and our distributor will be keeping high street sales under close observation to ensure that supplies keep pace with the hoped-for increasing footfall and resultant demand. And so with your encouragement and support we've made it through to this point; let's all hope for brighter times ahead.