WHEN Tim Blott, the then editor of the BFP, asked me if I would like to contribute a weekly column to the newspaper I readily agreed - but I little thought that, ten years later, I would still be doing it.

Now, after some hesitation, I have come to the decision to pack it in. Hardly world-shattering. Those kind readers who have borne with me over the years will know that I can usually come up with some old saying or other, most with at least a germ of truth in them, and now I offer this one - that it is no bad thing to quit while you're ahead.

I've had the advantage of a lifetime of watching the changing face of High Wycombe and district, and indeed much of Bucks in general, and of exchanging views with many of the people who in various ways have helped to shape the civic and social life of the area.

Along with others of my generation, I have not considered many of the changes to have been for the better and, whether or not I have been criticised for it, I have not hesitated to throw in my two-pennyworth.

Wycombe's progress, if that is what it is, has been from a small market town to a spreading commercial, residential and business centre; from a nationally-prominent chair manufacturing town to a diversified area.

We residents see the town entering a new era of shopping development and must wait to see whether council decisions being made now come up to the planners' expectations.

We greybeards were reared in times when serious crime was minimal, when there were no such things as a Neighbourhood Watch - and no need for one.

They were times when volunteers were plentiful to help in good causes, times when families were traditionally close. We knew the local coppers and they well knew us. Most of the local business was family inherited and family run - which had much to be said for it both in service and quality.

Invention, universally, has been quite amazing, even though some of us have not always made best use of it, and medical science has in so many ways enriched our lives.

In the newspaper world, technical and production resources have zoomed to high peak and today's journalists have benefits never available to we oldsters. But, happily, a writer is still a writer and I honestly can't see that, basically, there is any way in which the breed can be replaced. What a nice thought! Can you imagine some automated machine searching out, collating and presenting the news of the day?

It has been my privilege to have been so closely associated with the local newspaper scene and with the BFP in particular, a newspaper which has on several occasions been awarded national recognition, one of them in my own years as editor.

And what a pleasure it has been to have shared the daily routine with such friendly and helpful people in all departments.

There used to be a saying 'You go up to Downley, into the valley for High Wycombe, and you pay tuppence for the Free Press'.

That's no longer true, since Downley has spread, High Wycombe is no longer confined to the valley and in common with all else you can no longer get a newspaper for two old pennies.

But at the risk of appearing to fawn on the present staff, readers get a lot more now, I think, than we were able to present in the olden days of hot metal.

And with that I sign off.

See Tribute: Page 15

From next week: Colin Baker's Look Who's Talking column