I’m 76 and my wife is 74. We were both Guardian readers before we were married in 1967. We lived in Edmonton, north London, and when Sheila paid the weekly paper bill the newsagent always remarked that we and the local vicar were the only two places that he delivered it to. After six years we moved to Enfield and we continued to have the Guardian delivered. We stayed in Enfield for 36 years. In 2010 we moved to sunny Suffolk and we still have the paper delivered. Sheila pays the quarterly subscription. We can only remember a handful of occasions in nearly 50 years of deliveries that the paper has failed to turn up. Probably the storms of 1987 and 1991 were two of the occasions!
We are both now retired. I was a teacher, Sheila was a librarian. We have two children, Laura and Jonathan. My favourite section of the Guardian is Sport and I always read that all the way through first. I was very upset a few years ago when you decided to combine the sport section with the main part of the paper. And very relieved when the Sport section became a separate part again. Sheila reads the main part first and likes the letters page, Steve Bell’s cartoon, Michele Hanson articles and the crossword to mention a few. In the main part I particularly like the financial pages and Country diary. We always read the film and theatre reviews.
We used to go to the theatre a lot when we lived in London. Now we use the theatres in Ipswich, a local group called Eastern Angles, the Southwold and Aldeburgh Summer Theatre and live performances at the local cinema in Woodbridge. Two recent performances have been As You Like It and Hangmen.
My hobbies are gardening – we have a fair-sized garden and I like to grow cordon and fan trained fruit trees. I volunteer with a local conservation group – we have an SSSI immediately beyond our back garden, with a special area for slow worms, adders and the silver studded blue butterfly. Sheila enjoys walking, and reading crime fiction – authors include Peter Robinson, Peter James, James Oswald, CJ Sansom, Peter Tremayne, Robert Harris (just a small selection). I enjoy power walking and I take part nearly every week in the local Parkrun. I walk it rather than jog or run it. My PB is 43.32.
We sometimes visit Kings Place. We came to a Christmas concert a few years ago and Alan Rusbridger played the piano. There was a surprise guest appearance from the guitarist John Williams. Another example of the Guardian never failing to surprise.
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