Andy Richardson: Surprise in the postbag that wasn’t from a malcontent
And so we go to Gillian Tanner. A lady – lady, no less, not a mere woman – who was moved to write to Weekend Towers. And while our mail sack – virtual and physical – is usually full of invective from people with axes to grind, who imagine we’re fancy dans who won’t go near a restaurant unless it’s brandishing two Michelin stars, who believe we won’t interview a schelbrity unless they’re willing to send us signed posters for our office walls and who consider we are sufficiently confident to wear spats (that bit’s true, we do wear spats, but only on Sundays) – it is seldom filled with the eloquent exegesis of such readers as Gillian. Until now.
This is what Gillian says: “I just want to thank you for your constant stream of warm hearted waffle on a Saturday. It cheers me up no end. I particularly enjoyed the piece about an aunt of yours that you wrote about a few weeks ago. What a tribute to her and to your family.”
Boom. Thanks Gillian, or might I call you Gill? Warm-hearted waffle. Dontcha just love a bit of alliteration to kick off a letter. And she’s down with the detail, like the best people always are. There’s more. There’s much, much more. Get a load of this: “Also the article which dealt with the best interviews that never got printed, I am sure that is common amongst journalists.”
Praise the Lord. In these times of media contraction and the rush to spend our lives online, there is a reader out there. And she’s not contacting IPSO to complain. Bliss. In transpires that Gillian has an eldest daughter, Linda, who has been a journalist from birth, in a manner of speaking. Eschewing the steepling spires of Oxbridge, she carved out a different path that allowed her to work with the public and focus on things that caught her eye. And Gillian, who poured her own journalistic talents into helping a local community group and who was inspired by her father, an amateur writer from Devon, can still string together the snazziest of sentences.
“Enough of this rambling rhetoric,” she says. “Again many thanks for your look at life that transfers to the page very well.”
We look forward to Gillian, sorry, Gill, being inducted to the judging panel for the next meaningless media awards. We shall lift our trophy proudly.
Readers are not also as kind, nor of such an equanimous disposition. Covering a house fire in West Bromwich 30 years ago, the occupier – who, happily, was uninjured – provided an unexpected response when I asked him for details of his family and a quote in praise of the fire brigade for getting them all out alive. His words were something to the effect: “If you print a single word about me, I’ll track you down and break your knees.” Given that I lived less than a mile from his smoke-stained property, I gulped hard, and thought better of progressing the interview. And while I didn’t go to the nearest hardware shop and buy a fire extinguisher for the, erm, gentleman in question, nor flowers for his wife, I found a special place for them in my heart.
On another occasion, a violent murderer was on the loose. We found out a relative’s address and knocked on the door. It was open. It creaked. I did the thing that Shaggy used to do on Scooby Doo when he saw a ghost. And the object of our inquisition was later invited to spend time behind bars at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Whole life term’s aren’t given out like confetti. Thank heavens I didn’t find him first. I may not have lived to receive Gillian, sorry, Gill’s letter.
For a couple of years, we were trolled. Two anonymous keyboard warriors slammed everything we did as wrong. Each week, they’d provide ill-informed commentary about reviews of local restaurants. Everything we did was wrong. And though they had nothing to back up their bitterness – they’d almost never eaten at the venue’s in question – they took delight in being given a platform to vent. Ain’t weirdos weird. After a while, I grew to enjoy their invective. I didn’t feel as though I’d achieved my aim unless they’d written to tell me how useless I was after I’d read it. A sort of bizarre inverse Stockholm Syndrome came to pass. Man, how I miss those dysfunctional, barely literate, abusive malcontents. Oh well.
Until Gillian, sorry, Gill’s letter, the best reader interaction came from another Man Column reader who decided to knit a pair of socks. They were – and still are – magnificent. Forget awards – which I only ever seemed to win while working in London (casual brag, sorry) – or the red carpet invites; in truth, we’re lucky to get a red lino invite. The bar has been raised. Who can go better than socks and handwritten letters?
