I live in rural upstate New York and I get my Guardians from my English friend and neighbour, Fiona DeJardin – art historian, bead maker and master gardener. Every few weeks I’ll collect my copies and, if lucky, a dozen fresh eggs from her chickens. I chip in a little to help with the subscription, but she gets them first and the puzzles have already all been completed. I count on the Guardian for world news and enlightened viewpoints. And I especially savour the colour photographs, which enable me to imagine that I’m part of a grander tableau.
My affinity for the Guardian goes back to my youth. I grew up in New York City during the 1950s and 60s, and our family got three to four papers daily. But my father, a prosperous businessman, had a friend from his more radical youth – Joseph Rosner, a writer who lived in Greenwich Village.
I remember that every few weeks when he came for a visit, he would bring my dad a stack of Manchester Guardian Weeklies, which he encouraged me to read as well. I learned to appreciate the broader world perspective, the wit and especially the language.
