I started reading the Guardian as a fledgling commuter on the Tube at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. It was therefore a no-brainer to subscribe 10 years later to the Guardian Weekly on taking up a position as a legal adviser to the British administration in the New Hebrides, that inimitable experiment in Anglo-French co-operation.
Those thin paper sheets shed an informative light on events in the world outside the small South Pacific bubble of the Condominium (not always inaccurately referred to as the Pandemonium). On moving to the Solomon Islands I continued to enjoy the Weekly for its mix of impartial reporting and reviews, not forgetting the annual challenge of the King William Quiz.
From there I moved to the Northern Territory of Australia, where delivery of the Weekly was more reliable than in the Pacific. As most Australian newspapers tend either to the parochial or to follow the Murdoch line, I then and later (on moving to Queensland) continued to read the Weekly (now in technicolour!) for its coverage of global human rights, environmental and developmental issues.
