I started reading the Manchester Guardian at 25, initially to improve my English vocabulary, and I have been reading it – and its sister paper , the Observer – ever since.
I arrived in England from Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in September 1948 in search of fame and fortune as a cricketer (I achieved neither).
Over the years, reading your balanced, objective and humane reporting, your editorials, and comment by journalists such as the late Hugo Young, I have become a better man than I was, particularly as I came from an elitist family and was a bit of a snob back then.
I am also the chair of the European Multicultural Foundation. As a person whose family and culture originated outside the UK, I very much appreciate the reporting by Alan Travis, home affairs editor, on matters relating to immigration and race relations in particular, as they are devoid of the sensational and prejudiced reporting that one reads so often in the rightwing newspapers.
As an ex-cricketer, I enjoy Vic Marks's articles in the sports pages.
There is an Indian saying that on judgment day, a writer, sent to burn in hell for eternity, complained because a murderer was sent to burn for a limited time. He was told that what the murderer did had ended, whereas his writing would continue to poison people for generations to come. Words are mightier than the sword and the Guardian to me is not simply a newspaper – it provides food for thought and a public conscience.
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