I started to read the Manchester Guardian at the University of York in 1963. Emigrating to Canada in 1970, I lost touch with the paper but when my husband Ian, our two sons and I moved to Oman in 1991 and subscribed to the Guardian Weekly, it became essential reading in an albeit wonderful country but one with a government-controlled press.
While I was teaching economics in an international school in Muscat, the Guardian Weekly was a favourite not only of my family but also of the staff to whom I passed it along. Letters to the editor helped me to sustain the realisation that so many others around the world felt as I did and gave me the opportunity to contribute my own dissent, while the opinion pieces offered so much thought-provoking argument on important current issues.
Now that we are retired and living in Canada, the Weekly is still our lifeline to the world. Nowhere else can one find such global coverage, and such intelligent, balanced and informed political, social and economic debate. With its science and art reviews, it is a wonderfully varied read.
When I returned to Canada in 2005 I was irritated that the media, when referring to the Guardian, would always add, dismissively, that it was a leftwing newspaper. This no longer happens. Nowadays the name Guardian is mentioned to confirm trustworthiness.
If you would like to appear in this space, send a brief note to guardian.weekly@theguardian.com
