My lecturer probably never knew why his Guardian was always late. After telling his class that the Guardian was the “world’s finest newspaper” and one “couldn’t be worldly wise without it”, my history lecturer never again got first grab of the sole Guardian that landed weekly on my university library’s periodical shelf.
Thereafter I always got to the mint-fresh Guardian first, and made sure no one could carry it away until I was satiated. If that required temporarily hiding its potpourri of knowledge and opinion behind dreary textbooks, well, so be it.
That was in 1983 in Launceston, Tasmania. I was taking advantage of the Australian government’s free tertiary education policy and had returned, from six years’ backpacking across the then “third world” for just that educational opportunity.
For me, the university’s sole subscription to the Guardian was a bridge to the wide wonderful world that I had just circumnavigated.
When later, now suitably credentialed, I backpacked away to what was now dubbed the developing world, I was glad to maintain a lifeline to western liberal thought.
From that day in 1983, I never lost the Guardian habit. Today, in my Tasmanian base, global connectedness and growing acumen are signified by availability of the Guardian Weekly in most news agencies. Provided the airport isn’t fog-bound.
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