I am not sure exactly when I first became aware of the Guardian Weekly, but I do remember the airmail edition. So, it must have been in the 70s when I was a new immigrant in Toronto. I arrived there in 1970, when the job market was extremely favourable for British-trained engineers. We sailed from Liverpool on the last voyage of the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Canada: icebergs en route, and a snow-laden Montreal greeted us.
After surviving the trauma of settling into this new strange land, we began to appreciate the diverse multicultural nature of this city. As a structural engineer, I became adept at designing repairs for old buildings. New buildings, particularly tall buildings, which the company I worked for, specialised in, did not interest me that much.
In 1994, my company transferred me to Greenville, South Carolina. Here, the outstanding quality of the Weekly stands in stark contrast to the local news sources. I have recently started handing out back numbers to anyone who does not reject them, sight unseen. A gratifyingly large number, I am glad to say.
I scan the whole newspaper from front to back, and then read it from back to front. Finally I will face the politically awful news in the front section. Unlike other readers, I do enjoy the Sports section, which briefly covers European-focused games and chess (a sport?).
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