The Guardian is a constant. A sheet broad enough to cover the fireplace to really get it going on cold winter evenings. It’s always been in the house. I haven’t always read it, though – a teenage phase of being too cool for the news saw to that – but it’s always there.
To this day, dad still insists on referring to it as the Manchester Guardian. One of my first memories of the newspaper was watching the movie Bend it Like Beckham, sitting with my grandma. In one scene, the character Jess’s father is quietly reading the paper. “We like him, he’s a Guardian man,” said my grandma. Well, that’s my relationship with the Guardian.
On weekday evenings we all sit and do the crossword. Mum excels at this, breezing through it well before my dad and I have even read the first clue. It is the newspaper that the entire family has always read and will keep reading.
I am about to start a master’s in forensic psychology, and will be spending my year out of education volunteering at Lancashire Women’s Centres. Working in criminal justice in an area like east Lancashire has for me only encouraged my leftwing politics. Listening to women attempting to navigate the benefits system, learning about the impact of cuts to legal aid and the defunding of public services – it all makes you realise that decisions made 200 miles away don’t always take into account people’s lives.
Growing up in a Conservative stronghold, I really learned the importance of reading papers like the Guardian. Reading and agreeing with leftwing viewpoints was solace after a heated conversation in the pub about “benefit scroungers” and the like.
As long as there is a Guardian, I’ll read it. I’ll be filled with warmth by the way Ruby Tandoh and, in the Observer, Nigel Slater write about food, for as long as they’ll write about it. I’ll be constantly impressed by their drive for equality and diversity within journalism. The Guardian is a constant source of inspiration to me. I can’t imagine life without it.
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