Aberdeen-based regional daily, the Press and Journal, which this week has switched to compact-size on a six-days-a-week-basis, carried a full-page yesterday highlighting how its readers welcomed a more “manageable” sized newspaper.

And it revealed that a Highland great-grandmother had more reason than most to rejoice at the new format.

The paper, which has upped its weekday cover price from 50p to 60p, explained: “Mary Nairne, 93, wrote in more than a year ago telling of her troubles with the old-style broadsheet paper.

“She said at the time: ‘I have to lie on the carpet to read all the pages. If you make this smaller, the whole of Britain will buy it. I mean this as it is a wonderful paper.”

Mary is now so pleased she is predicting an even wider readership – expansively confiding to the P&J: “I hope the whole of the world will buy it now – not just Britain [sic] – because it gives you all the Scottish news and all the local news.”

With Dundee-based regional morning, The Courier, changing to compact from this Saturday, The Herald will now be the only indigenous broadsheet daily or evening newspaper.

And The Herald, with the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph, will be one of only three UK mainstream broadsheets of the 22 daily morning and evening newspapers on regular sale in Scotland.

And only three broadsheets remain on the newsstands on Sundays – Scotland on Sunday, the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Times.