When my grandmother died five years ago, I inherited an old oak sideboard. In it, I found it a copy of the Guardian from 8 January 1962. I was pleased to read a wide range of articles, from riots in Paris to nuclear weapons testing in the US, from arguments over immigration from the Commonwealth to updates on the progress of the Meacham quadruplets. The cryptic crossword was just as impossible; the weather maps were hand-drawn.
Already a reader of the Guardian, I was struggling to find a moment to read it and work full-time as a junior doctor. Finding this old copy of the Guardian spurred me to persevere, so I turned to the more manageable Guardian Weekly to give me that global spread of news and quality reporting, that I could dip in and out of during free moments. I even met my husband on the Guardian Soulmates dating website.
Now we lie in bed on a Sunday morning with a greyhound dog wedged between us, me reading the Guardian Weekly and my husband reading the daily online. Maybe one day, another young person will find these pages of the Guardian Weekly and be inspired like me.
