A reader raised on his father's recitation of Guardian cricket reports tells how the paper has been a constant through life
When I was five years old my father apparently read to me extracts from Neville Cardus's cricket reports in the Manchester Guardian in a vain attempt to stimulate my interest in his favourite game and his favourite newspaper. I have no recollection of them, but I do remember being taken to watch Lancashire play cricket when I was seven.
Sadly my father was killed whilst on duty as an air raid warden in the Manchester Blitz of December 1940, on the same night that German bombs wrecked the cricket ground. My mother, although a keen Tory, continued the subscription to the Manchester Guardian remembering my father's dictum that: "If our Stuart learns to read the leader page every day, he will be able to hold an intelligent conversation with anyone in the land." Although the paper was of little interest to me then, I recall it during the war as part of my nightly firelighting duties. I tore the pages of old copies into strips and rolled them into tight balls as a substitute for firewood.
I did begin to read the paper regularly in adolescence, and when I went up to the LSE in 1951 I began to buy my own copy of the paper.
After graduation came national service. The Manchester Guardian was in short supply in the army, but I managed to persuade the education sergeant to order it as supplementary reading material for his students.
On being demobbed, I returned to Manchester to start work and to get married. My fiance, Jean, came from a staunch Labour, Daily Mirror-reading family, but before our wedding she was already well aware of the superior merits of the Manchester Guardian.
Fifty-four years later, and despite the many changes to our daily paper, we remain loyal readers. And my father was absolutely right. I still read the leading articles faithfully and I feel quite capable of holding a conversation – or argument – with anyone I meet!