The first time I became aware of the Manchester Guardian was in the mid-60s when I lived in Oldham, Lancashire. Then at Durham University we read Private Eye, which mischievously coined the nickname the “Grauniad” for the Guardian, because of the high number of typographic errors at the time.
When I left university, I left Manchester behind. I took a job in (swinging) London, and then went to Portsmouth and joined the then-emerging IT industry, at a time when the daily processing of a bank’s $1m savings accounts would be done on a computer the size of six refrigerators.
In the 70s I kept moving south and ended up in Australia. We now live in country New South Wales, together with goats, ponies, kangaroos, echidnas, kookaburras and wombats. The air is clean, the sky is blue and “terror” is a long way away.
Roll forward many years, and I responded to an offer from the Guardian Weekly for six issues. Once I started receiving the Weekly I was hooked and became a subscriber. Nowhere else do I find the same level of critical writing about the important issues that affect so many of us. I love the opinion pieces – which oft-times challenge cherished beliefs – Oliver Burkeman and the back page.
Thank you, Guardian. May you survive the ravages of the internet – you deserve to.
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