Why are so many Guardian Weekly Good to meet yous in Australia? Simple. Apart from the local public broadcaster, there is no decent coverage of what is happening beyond these shores. As a primary teacher in my retirement, I can vouch that it is to the detriment of the future.
Breakfast ain’t breakfast without the Grauniad and its crossword. I first started reading the Manchester Guardian at Oxford, where it was my only contact with the north whence I came, in a land where I was told “Never met anyone from the north of England before”. From Merseyside, not exactly Manchester.
After Oxford I worked as an agricultural economist; 20 years in Tanzania, Kenya and Denmark. I found the Weekly and it was a lifeline, even though I could read the Danish and Swahili papers. Doing field work in western Tanzania, where the Weekly took some time to reach me, I followed the BBC World Service, in those days on a giant radio on the car roof and twiddled the knob until I got a crackly rendition of the march Lilliburlero.
I met and married an Australian lass in Kenya and came to Australia 30 years ago and worked in the NSW department of agriculture until last year, which I moved with up to Orange. Here I planted a vineyard in Emu Swamp, where the postie puts my GW in the box at the gate, usually on Friday. Favourites? Weekly review, Comment and the puzzles.
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