I’m 60, a retired engineering lecturer who now makes furniture and runs a community woodland. I grew up in a leftwing household in the London suburbs and have read the Guardian since I was a student. I’ve lived in the north ever since I graduated, and am now in Stockport.
My wife died last November, we planned Rollins Wood together, so it was a legacy for her really. It’s a productive woodland with hazel coppice, basket willow, an orchard and a beehive. We got 80 volunteers to help plant all the trees in January, and we have various events there, such as school parties visiting. It’s a lovely place to go and see the seasons changing and is soon to be a co-op. I’m a member of other co-ops too: I get my timber from Greater Manchester TreeStation and I volunteer at Fordhall Organic Farm in Shropshire. I run and cycle a bit. I sing and I’m learning the guitar. I’m keeping myself busy because I live on my own now. I recently joined the Green party, the third political party I’ve tried!
I am also recently out as transgender and find the website’s coverage of the issue exemplary and a vital lifeline for me. I imagine quite a few of these articles don’t appear in the printed newspaper. I buy the Saturday edition and read online during the week. My favourite bits are the fiction reviews – that’s how I get my novels. I absolutely love the photographs of the week. The quality, especially online, is absolutely fantastic. The Guardian’s always had good photos – Don McPhee and people like that. I’ve also love investigative journalism. I read all the Edward Snowden stuff. The coverage of women’s issues is also very wide-ranging, I love the way you have lots of young female writers as well. I was sorry to see Alan Rusbridger go – he was a fantastic editor. But now you have a female editor – what could be better?
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