Open Writing

"No news is good news" is an old saying and some days I even start to believe it.

Only last weekend I was wearing one of my many 'other hats' - the little green peaked eye shade actually, you know the type, like baseball caps with no crown. The sort newspaper men wear in old films.

Anyway, I'd mentally donned this hat to prepare for doing one of my other jobs. As some of you know, when I'm not sharing with you all the enlightening benefits of Walking the Tightrope, taxi driving, window cleaning or tutoring, I have the fantastic and deceptively grand-sounding title of Features Editor of the Kirklees Recorder.

The Kirklees Recorder is a talking newspaper (no, not a magic Harry Potter sort of talking newspaper) produced on cassette tapes to enable anyone who is visually impaired, or otherwise incapable of reading ordinary newspapers, to keep up with the local news by listening instead of reading.

My regular Editing job involves the preparation of features and interviews to slot in between the news stories, which are selected from papers throughout the Kirklees area by News Editor Pat Bagley.

However, when the said News Editor goes on holiday, I have the challenging task of reading through the 12 weekly and 12 daily papers which cover the Kirklees area. My aim is to select around forty minutes of news which reflects what's been happening in the many and varied parts of Kirklees in the past fortnight. And sometimes I do start to believe that it's all doom and gloom and that, as I said at the beginning, "no news is good news."

After trawling through the papers last week the doom and gloom started to get to me. There was the 18-year-old Chickenley lad who'd been stabbed, twenty-year-old Matthew Shaw from Mirfield (a former neighbour of ours) who'd died in a tragic accident, a man shot in his home in Heckmondwike, the GP shortage, fires, robberies etc, etc.

Eldest daughter accuses me of being "paranoid and neurotic" about bad news - especially the safety aspect of it - because she's not allowed to walk home alone at night. She argues that because I read about all the muggings and attacks in every local paper I'm over-protective and I’m not allowing her to grow up.

She may be right - but she's still not walking home alone at night.

However her youthful optimism did start me thinking afresh about my perception of "news". After a bit of green eye shade tugging and floor pacing I had to concede she had a point. A deeper trawl through the local newspapers reassured me there's plenty of good news out there.

For instance people all over the area organised hundreds of coffee mornings and other events to raise funds for the Macmillan Appeal. Batley and Cleckheaton are to get new bus stations (who said 'at last!') and Dewsbury and Batley Blind Society have a new mini bus.

But far and away the most inspiring positive news I read was about the 44 youngsters honoured in the Mayor of Kirklees' Children of Courage Awards. Our marvellous Mayor, Cllr Margaret Bates, paid tribute to the youngsters and their families who together had overcome tragedy and illness, in a special Oscar-style ceremony at Huddersfield Town Hall.

They were children like Mirfield's Abigail Johnson; who lost an eye through cancer, wheelchair-bound Ravensthorpe teenager Steven Golding, who almost died but is now looking forward to college and Dewsbury girl Alice Maddocks who has aplastic anaemia and needs a bone marrow transplant.

Each youngster, with the love and devotion of family and friends, has overcome personal tragedy with courage, bravery and determination, to live positive and hopeful lives.

I've decided to take a leaf from their books and think positive - in future I shall try and look for and remember the good news stories and not just the bad ones.