50 years and counting...

How do you summarise half a century of journalism, spanning 600 editions of a publication that has had at least five different names? As Premier Christianity turns 50 this month, Justin Brierley and Sam Hailes have a go below and here.

Any history of Premier Christianity must first begin with the story of Buzz magazine, whose life spanned almost half of the 50 years we celebrate in this edition of the magazine.

The first copy of Buzz was produced in October 1965 as a newsletter for the recently formed Gospel Music Outreach, an organisation set up to resource the new wave of Christian beat bands playing in the popular church coffee bar scene. It consisted of a few folded sheets of foolscap paper, printed in black and white and collated by the enthusiastic volunteers of a church youth group. Yet these humble origins were revolutionary in their own way.