Herald

I found the remains of the Daily Herald for Friday April 25th 1958, flattened under a wooden palette in the former store-room. The paper was so compressed and the dust so thick on top of it, that I realised that the palette had not been moved for forty seven years.

I read fragments of yesterday's news on perished bits of paper and glimpsed someone elses today, here on Shivering Sands. Tito could not make a conference, a sleeping boy fell 32 feet to the street, British troops 'moved up in Aden', war babies were jamming the Borstals, the TUC accused the government of 'un-complacency' and Jonh Gunther reported from Russia that the poor souls there never got to go to cocktail parties, and that the average citizen had never been able to have their shoes cleaned by a 'boot black' ...what a world picture.

A sweet packet of a different vintage revealed the presence of another visitor, sometime in February 1971 or soon after. Now, after the ritual sweeping and and sifting, this room has become my kitchen on the 9th August 2005.