From the Archives

Once in a while it's time here it's time to report I'm out of new books to read. There have been a few good new ones recently but it's been time to go back to the shelves to find a re-reading option. William Trevor's The News from Ireland proved well worth a revisit.

There are a number of old newspapers in the archives saved for various reasons, the most common of them being because I had my name in them. So I had a look at them. What I hadn't realized was that over 50 years ago, in April 1975, not much happened in Gloucester without me being involved. I'm in 25/4/75's edition twice.

I was pleased to see that, aged 15 and a half, I came second in Glos City Cycling Club's Speed Judging event on the same page as the Sunday League football tables in which FC Spartak are doomed to relegation to the bottom division with one game to go. I dare say we lost to the G.P.O two days later, that being the last match of the season as evidenced by the team listings later, on page 15.

  

 I didn't remember it thus. I thought my first season with them was in the bottom division but here's the hard evidence that we were relegated to it before an equally dire season but then being promoted back before I decided on retirement at, I thought, 17 but maybe it was 18. And that is why it's essential to keep such ephemera for 50 years - so that one knows.  

It might not only be me that wants to know. It's unlikely, of course, but maybe one day, my poems having been recognized for the consummate artworks they are, a professor in search of a further angle on my life and work might find this item and make from it a piece of research for the journal of the David Green Society, set up to promote the public knowledge and appreciation of my works.  

It's possible that Philip Larkin would have been quietly very satisfied that such a thing was set up to honour him and, you never know, perhaps I would, too, although I'll manage very well, thank you, without being included in the honours list.