The Column Inches...Away!

Some of you (not many, I'll give you, but some of you) may have been wondering what has happened to the monthly Derby Telegraph column in which I have been rambling about my somewhat chaotic start to my career history?  For the record, the last column appeared in April and it was this one 'The End of the Paper Trail'.

The simple answer is that the Derby Telegraph, in their wisdom, have changed the format of their Bygones page so that, as from 1st May, the daily page is no more and has been replaced by a 250 word insert with a photo.  The Bygones supplement, published each Monday, carries the longer articles written by contributors like myself but, as it's only five pages long, it's somewhat restricted as to content.  As all the former monthly contributors are now funnelled through this supplement, and two pages of it are given over to a local history article by a local historian and one page to a sort of 'On This Day in History' type article, there really isn't a lot of scope for one of my articles to appear, other than once in a blue moon.  The end result is that an unbroken series of monthly articles, stretching back more than ten years, appears to have come to a rather unfortunate end.

I can't complain because I've had a really good run and I can clearly recall the joy of getting my first article in print, never expecting to still be churning out memories from my early years ten years later.  Still, I'll miss the discipline of producing a monthly article and the memories it evoked.

Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read about my exploits and if you know of anyone who is in need of a columnist - I'm cheap and available ;-)