The service that has issued more than 75 million audio books to visually impaired people in the UK is celebrating its 70th birthday. The Royal National Institute for the Blind`s Talking Book Service pioneered the use of long-playing records in the 1920s, long before the music industry. Two million talking books are now issued every year, mostly on CD. The most requested author is Catherine Cookson and her novel, Fenwick House, is the most popular title. Trail-blazing service The Talking Book Service has its origins in the First World War. Many soldiers returning from the front were blinded in action and found it too difficult to learn braille. As early as 1920, the RNIB began testing various formats to produce talking books. By 1926 the organisation was experimenting with long-playing records which could be played on gramophones. It was thanks to the RNIB`s trail blazing that LPs were eventually adopted by the music industry. But it took until the mid-thirties before the Talking Book Service was launched. On November 7 1935, blind and partially sighted people had a choice of two titles - Agatha Christie`s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Joseph Conrad`s Typhoon. The early books were recorded onto 12 inch discs which played at 24rpm. This meant that 25 minutes of audio could be recorded onto each side and a typical novel would fit onto 10 double-sided records. The Post Office granted the RNIB a concessionary postage rate to keep costs down, and the Society of Authors and the Society of Publishers helped to overcome copyright problems