Letter to the Editor 2

Les wonders how we can enlist the aid of the younger generation to keep The Village Pump going

Dear Editor,

Reading your editorial in the May Issue I was delighted to read that you are well on the way to a complete recovery from your recent mishap, I wish you well.

I was also interested to note that you consider that we should be looking for what I would call an Assistant Editor, someone who one day will replace you when you decide to call it a day, if that's how you see it then excellent thinking on your part.You did mention that you are now aged 74. As one of your regular contributors I am now 79 and some of your other contributors may well be, should we say, not as young as they were? What is my point? Well I have a feeling not all of our readers are teenagers; in fact I'm not sure if many are. And yet I consider they are very important - after all they are our future.

I have always taken the view that we should embrace our young people more, sorry Mr. Editor I got carried away, I meant we should encourage our young people to become more involved with our Village Pump. If we are looking for a future Editor then what an opportunity? So how do we go about this? Well the last thing we should do is advertise. Who knows who might respond? It could be me, heaven help us, far better to be more selective. I have recently written that there is talent out there; well let's go get 'em. That might well prove difficult. What might well also prove to be impossible could be when we try to persuade this talent to come on board.

David Smith comments in the May edition that perhaps I'm a fan of his daughter Chloe. There's no perhaps about it, I definitely am. Not because of who she is, but what she is, and she is a young Lady with talent. These sort of young people to me represent change. It is us older people whose philosophy appears to be the opposite. How many times have I suggested that change is inevitable when we talk of village shops etc closing, we should be embracing the future, not trying to cling to the past.

So where does this leave us? The answer is more of the same, and as long as we continue to travel down that road our young people will show no interest, as indeed is the case now.

Methwold

Les Lawrence