Around four years ago I was offered a six-week introductory subscription to the Guardian Weekly. I was studying for my PhD and teaching art history. It had become difficult to get through a daily newspaper, but it wasn’t just the scale of the Weekly that appealed – it was the range of international news and in-depth discussion that took me beyond the UK. I was hooked!
Unlike so many readers, I have always lived in the UK, and the south-east of England. The happiest changes in my life have come through family and education: my husband, three children and a baby granddaughter; my degree at Birkbeck College, University of London, completed at the age of 42, led to the satisfactions of higher education teaching; my doctorate, on artist Winifred Knights, re-ignited a partially dormant feminism.
I like the Eyewitnessed pictures – the scale has real impact. I particularly enjoy the Weekly Review articles, the range of commentators on the back page and topics that warrant greater coverage, from the lives of Chechen gay men to solutions to housing problems and indigenous communities worldwide.
I was first drawn to the Weekly by this international range. But I read the UK discussions, too: in a country shaken by the terrible Grenfell Tower fire, political turmoil and terrorism, we need high-quality, thoughtful journalism.
If you would like to appear in this space, send a brief note to guardian.weekly@theguardian.com
