12:59pm Friday 8th May 2009
LITTLE thought, in October 1994, when I wrote a letter to the editor of this newspaper that he would offer me a weekly column as a result, nor that I would still be writing it, for that same editor 14 years later.
I recently unearthed that letter.
By one of those inevitable coincidences, it was in defence of another actor prosecuted for speeding on the M40.
A local councillor had written to the paper suggesting that the actor should have been put in prison (for doing 97 mph on the M40?).
On behalf of motorists in general and actors in particular, I thought this a trifle disproportionate.
So began my relationship with my local paper; a relationship I have enjoyed enormously both as reader and contributor. I have been gratified throughout that period by feedback from my fellow local residents, most of whom have been polite or even complimentary, although accompanied by ‘I don’t agree with everything you say, mind you’. That is just as it should be.
I used to read the nationals more often than I do now, in the age of streaming news on TV, radio and the internet.
But the newspaper I never fail to get (not just to see my own ramblings in print, I promise) is the BFP.
In common with every other reader, there are bits I skip and bits I turn to regularly.
My first port of call is the sports pages, followed by the letters, entertainment news, court news (to check on the vagaries of magistrates’ sentencing) news from my local villages, planning applications, house prices and, of course, the editorial and Charles Mann, another contributor with the courage of his convictions.
But the letters page is, for me, one of the most important sections of any local newspaper.
It can often be the barometer by which we judge how we are doing as a newspaper serving the local community.
Yes, it may often be the usual suspects who write in – and over the years there have been many wonderfully opinionated regular contributors. As an opinionated contributor myself I would say that I suppose.
But whatever the issue – the downgrading of Wycombe Hospital, the swimming pool on The Rye, speed camera cash cows on Marlow Hill, Scannappeal – it is the local residents who can shift opinion and make things happen through and with the backing of this, their local paper.
Long may it publish – and not be damned!
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