My fond farewell to the Bath Chronicle and the city

After six and a half very happy years (and more than 330 in-paper columns!), I will be leaving my position as editor of the Bath Chronicle on Friday, June 1 and so this is my farewell to you all.


As I said when the announcement was originally made, I have just reached a stage in my life where I feel I need to do something different and the fact that I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what that ‘something’ is, is obviously just a mere footnote. All I do know is that if I can find any other role that can give me the same level of satisfaction and pride that I’ve been able to have in this position then I will be a very lucky man indeed.

I first came to Bath in September 2005 and I have to admit I knew nothing about the city before I came. In many ways I saw this as a great advantage because it meant I didn’t carry any baggage or have any set opinions about the important issues that affect our community. This allowed me to go on my own journey of discovery to try and help shape the direction of this wonderful and important local newspaper.

Welcoming in the Chronicle's 250th anniversary with my friends and highly-talented colleagues Graham Holburn and Paul Wiltshire 

Of course, some of you may never have forgiven me for being part of the team that turned the Chronicle from a daily paper to a weekly one but the truth is that was a move that has secured the paper’s long-term future and has made it a far more successful and respected title as a result. We have won a number of awards since becoming weekly but far more importantly, we’ve won more readers and when combined with our success online and our increasingly strong presence on the social media, we are now being read by more people than ever before. And I’m extremely proud of that fact.

But, the real reason why I will be able to look back on my time here with sheer pleasure is because I have been privileged to work with some amazing colleagues and to be part of a remarkable community based on decency, goodness and unshakeable community spirit.

This is a city which has, as its backdrop, some of the most glorious architecture in Europe but it is not the bricks and mortar that define the strength of a community it is the quality of the people and in this regard Bath truly is second to none.

One of my happiest days - welcoming Nicolas Cage to the Roman Baths after he turned on the Christmas lights. Pictured with my lovely MD Sarah Pullem. 

Week in week out, I have been amazed at the generosity of people to charities big and small. From our prized local philanthropists to those with little to spare but who are still determined to help others, I have been truly touched and inspired by the kindness of local folk.

Maybe Bathonians don’t think this about their community enough but let me tell you all that Bath truly is special and that’s because of the people who make it so. And I feel truly honoured to have been able to have played a small part over the years in helping to make sure that this city is served with the best possible newspaper to celebrate the city's bewildering amount of achievements.

Whatever the future holds for me, I’ll still be around Bath at times I hope because as, we all know, this is a city that once it gets you, you stay ‘got’. It’s a special city with special people – thank you all for allowing me to be part of it.

(Please feel free to follow me on Twitter at @samholliday).

PS My in-paper column may have ended but my blog will continue. Please visit again!!! 

Why leaving a job can be like being at your own funeral...

As you may have heard by now, I have announced that I will be leaving the really rather wonderful job of editor on Friday, June 1.

It was a very tough decision to make as I’m one of those very fortunate people who loves his job (and always has done) but I have just come to the point where I feel it is time to seek a new challenge. And if I don’t do it now, well perhaps I may never do so.

The fact that I don’t have a clue as to what that challenge may be has certainly surprised some people but I am of the opinion that maybe you can’t even think about opening a new door until you’ve firmly closed the old one.

I made the announcement on Thursday, April 19,  and since then I have been genuinely touched at the way people – both in my office and outside – have reacted to my news.

I’ve received a number of emails, cards, telephone calls and messages on social media sites all wishing me well and it has been very humbling to see, read and hear some of these generous remarks. They all reminded me again (not that I needed much reminding) about how special and thoughtful the people of Bath and surrounding towns and villages truly are. And how very lucky my eventual successor will be.

What these messages also made me think, however, is it is a real shame in some ways that we only ever tend to tell people what we think of them at times of leaving.

At the most extreme example of this, I have often sat in funerals and heard the deceased lauded for his or her achievements. At times I’ve wondered if the unfortunate recipient of these eulogies had actually known just how highly they were regarded while they were still in a position to appreciate such words. Indeed a little rock group (who you may heard me mentioned in this blog once, twice or 74 times) called The Stranglers once penned a ditty called Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead which summed up the way we only rush to praise people after their demise. Maybe it is because we find it easier to express our love and admiration for someone when there is no chance of a reaction from them?

Leaving a job, as I’m about to do, is probably the nearest we get to hearing what people might say if we make that, ahem, ultimate journey and I think that’s all rather sad.

So, as a leaving gift to me (although as satted I’m still around for a few weeks yet!), I am hereby urging you all today to make a ‘living tribute’ to someone in your home, school, office, factory, shop, college, playgroup, church, sports club etc etc etc. I know it is not terribly English to do so but why not just surprise someone you care about and say something nice to them – for no other reason than you can.

If you do so you might just give them the sort of lift I have had this week as friends, colleagues and contacts past and present have made my inbox a happy place to visit.

Don’t wait until someone has a P45 in their pocket (or, even worse a one-way ticket ‘north’) to salute them just do it today because people need to feel good and nothing makes them feel better than knowing that someone, somewhere, appreciates them.
 

It’s nice to be nice.

Print is safe! How we 'beat' digital in the great D:BATE

Like many people in this city full of ideas and opinions, I just love a good debate.

Whether it’s about sport, politics, religion or any of the other facets of life that potentially divide us, I always enjoy witnessing and being part of the cut-and-thrust of lively and engaging verbal battles.

Therefore, I was delighted to see that a new debating forum has started in Bath – called, simply, D:BATE. The organisers of this forum want to create a way for Bathonians to take part in open and passionate discussions about some of the issues that affect us all both locally and nationally.

The winning team - Mike, myself and Robert. Pic: Matt Cardy

They kicked off in impressive style on Monday by tying in with Bath’s excellent digital festival to have a debate on the motion: “Digital is killing the print industry – the presses will stop running in ten years”.

Now, as most of you are reading this in print (although I know some will be reading it on my blog), you can imagine where I stand on the “will print survive” concept and so I was very pleased to be asked to join the team defending and promoting newspapers, books, magazines et al.

The nature of the debate meant that three of us (I was joined by the dynamic duo of Mike Goldsmith from Future and Robert Topping of the wonderful bookshop that carries his name) were each given seven minutes apiece to voice our arguments. These were interspersed by seven minute bursts of the opposite opinion from three equally committed speakers – local digital whizz kids Richard Godfrey and Chris Book and the flamboyant and entertaining author Julian Gough.



The idea was we would all give our opinions, take questions from the floor and then the audience would vote to see which team had won.

The excellent opposition. Above Julian and Richard. On the right is Chris Book.

Pics by Matt Cardy 

I’m delighted to say that we did (so keep your subscription to the Bath Chronicle going until at least 2021!) but I believe it’s not about the winning, it’s about the taking part.



In saying that however, I must confess that, on balance, winning is rather the better option.

The great thing about the night was that although the debate itself was seriously conducted, it was also great fun and I think all of us managed to mix the facts and stats we’d brought with us with a little bit of energy and wit to ensure that the very impressive sized audience in the glorious surroundings of the Pump Room enjoyed every minute.

In the wake of the demise of the Better Bath Forum (which did an equally important job last year), I think D:BATE will fill the gap nicely – and indeed offer something different to what we’ve seen before.

D:People behind Lightful D:BATE.

Some of the organsiers - Pic by Matt Cardy

The bright and breezy team led by Dom Moorhouse are not scared to tackle controversial issues – their next one on June 13 is about whether we need a monarchy right in the midst of the Jubilee celebrations – and there is an zeal and vitality among everyone involved which makes me think this could grow into something really special for the city.

You can find out more about the group at www.debatebath.com and I hope

that anyone who enjoys a good, healthy debate in a relaxed environment will keep an eye out for their future endeavours.

 Oh and finally, thanks to all of those who voted for our ‘side’. As I say it’s not about winning – but if you believe that then you will believe anything.

Like, for instance, that the presses will stop running in ten years time . . .



Feeling 'Christmassy'? No, well sing a carol . . .

Are you feeling ‘Christmassy’ yet?


This is a question that people often ask each other throughout December and it is usually, in my experience, asked by people who feel somewhat nervous that they aren’t yet in the ‘zone’ that leads up to December 25 and want reassurances others aren’t too.

I must admit I didn’t feel ‘Christmassy’ at all this year until – and I can almost name the exact time – about 6.40pm last Thursday, December 8. That was when I first heard the line ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed’ being lustily sung at the Chronicle/Rotary Club of Bath’s annual carol service at the abbey.

And it ‘got’ me.

For those who were around last Thursday night you will remember it was a horrible, cold, wet and miserable evening.

If ever there was a reason to not attend an event in the city centre on an evening, Mother Nature had provided the perfect one and it could have been entirely understandable if the abbey was half-empty for the proceedings.

But it wasn’t. Oh no.

There wasn’t a seat spare to be found and the abbey was packed to the rafters because people know that this annual city centre carol service is the one that can actually kick off Christmas for Bath people – and it certainly did for me.

The key to its success I think is revisiting much-loved carols in a communal atmosphere. There is something about Christmas carols that really seems to move people – whether they are regular church-goers or just those who attend such places for weddings or the odd funeral.

Our love for carols probably goes back to the fun of doing school nativity plays – a Christmas tradition that, if anything, seems to be getting stronger. Next week’s Chronicle will feature no fewer than 24 pages worth of pictures of such nativities and all will reveal the sheer joy that young people have in taking part in this special event at this time of the year. And no decent nativity is complete without a carol or two. There are many new ones these days –- and probably a lot of them are rather funkier than the ‘old faves’ – but the traditional tunes are still as popular as ever and just as nearly everyone still knows the Lord’s Prayer, everyone also seems to know what follows the words ‘the cattles are lowing’. . .

These tunes are just something in our consciousness now and you don’t have to be remotely religious to know that carols can touch the parts other spiritual songs can’t.

Of course, for many people the impact of even some of the ‘top of the pops’ in carol terms has been diluted by the fact they seem to be on a permanent loop in the shops at this festive time. You go from Noddy Holder in one shop to Hark The Herald in another and both, after a while, can get equally annoying.

But, put in the right context – and there is no possible better context than the Bath Abbey on a December evening – carols can truly touch the heart, lift the spirits and can really make people stop and think amidst all the other Christmas chaos around them about what is the actual ‘reason for the season’.

Christmassy? Yep, I am now.

A 'typical' week in a newsroom? Hardly.

This originally appeared in my Bath Chronicle column on November 24 after a crazy week in the office....

On Monday night, November 21, I had the pleasure of talking to the Weston Local History Society on the subject of the local and national media – past, present and future. It was, hopefully, an informative evening for everyone but there was one point when I was literally lost for words. And that was when one of the members asked me to describe ‘a typical day’ in the life of an editor or a newsroom.


The reason I couldn’t answer immediately is that I realised there is no such thing as a typical day and although we are governed by strict deadlines, what happens between the end of one week’s paper and the publication of the following weeks is totally unpredictable.

And this week has really proved the point.

I was away for a few days last week, only popping back into the office in advance of the Christmas light switch on. I therefore expected that on Monday all the talk would be about John Cleese and the Christmas extravaganza but by the time I came in again the agenda had moved and we have gone on to have a truly remarkable week in the newsroom which really reiterates why the best jobs are those where you never quite know what is going to happen next.

For a starter, we were very short staffed due to holidays and sickness. We all assured ourselves we could cope – and cope we somehow have – but what we weren’t expecting was the astonishing amount of important news stories that had flowed into the office for our small team to deal with.

As hopefully you will may seen in the paper of November 24, it was a big week locally filled with both tragedy (the story of the soldier David Boyce killed in Afghanistan and the sad story of the woman who died at a Bath petrol station) but also with triumph in the shape of the light switch on which brought the whole community together – as did the moving march through our city by the servicemen returning from the Middle East. Throw in the fact that we had some fascinating news about expansions to two of our biggest supermarkets, an RUH fire, the build up to Bath City’s big FA Cup match and so many other stories that  put the whole team on full alert and that really was a week where I can feel even more proud than usual of the small but dedicated team who do everything they can to give you the best possible newspaper, website and Twitter updates.

Of course, we can only produce the news service we do by the fantastic support we receive from you all as our readers and this gives me one of those rare chances to say thank you for that. We care passionately about our community and because you also care passionately about how your community is represented this ‘teamwork’ means we can hopefully always rise to the occasion on weeks like the one we have just seen.

I was out talking again on Friday, November 25, this time to a group of students at Kingswood School about journalism. And one of the points I  made to them is that this is a job where you never quite know what is going to happen next and that is why it is so hard to answer the question ‘what is your typical day’.

And next week? I have no idea.

A delightful DVD dip into Bath's history

This first appeared in the Bath Chronicle of August 4

As you may have seen in these pages in recent weeks, a new DVD about Bath's history has been released.

Using the words from the Chronicle's archives as its soundtrack, it features some fascinating photos and remarkable cine film to provide an interesting whistle-stop tour through many of Bath's modern historical events.

I was intrigued watching many of the stories unfold and I was particularly absorbed by the stunning and moving footage of what happened to the city during Hitler's aerial bombardment here. The full colour footage of the wrecked streets of Bath really brought the stories I've read about in our pages to life and I truly felt some of the pain that the city still feels to this day about those tumultuous days of 1942.

I was similarly absorbed by some of the other excellent film footage of a far more peaceful time - the 1960s.

The DVD includes some lovely film around the city in those early days of the supposedly swinging '60s when life actually seemed far less hurried and chaotic than it appears today.
The camera takes us all around some of the streets and areas that we love but what genuinely amazed me was not only how few cars were on the road but also the places where people were allowed to park.

You can practically play a game of 'spot the place where you wouldn't get a ticket today' and, trust me, there aren't many.

What this footage showed was why the subject of transport in and around Bath has been such a hot topic ever since the first automobile hit the Bath streets - and yes, that is featured in the DVD too.

I have no doubt that in those days when the 1960s film was being made, there were letters to this paper about the terrible state of the traffic and yet the roads then seemed about as busy as they would be at 3am in the middle of the week now. The frightening thing is if we've gone from that to what we now see in less than a generation, just how much more clogged up could our roads become in years to come? So if you ever want to understand why people get so het up about transport and transport schemes in this city, then this DVD gives you a real clue.

What is also nice about this new addition to Bath's historical archive is that although it clearly shows that much has changed in Bath over the years, we should be very proud that a lot of things remain untouched and unsullied.

Yes, we had the Sack of Bath but this film shows the city still looks and feels much as it did in years gone by and although there will be times when you will watch the DVD and wish that some things hadn't changed at all I suspect, like me, the number of things that look reassuringly familiar will also gladden your heart.

The film is called Bath The Way We Were.

Yes you CAN write that book. Ask Moira.

This first appeared in the Bath Chronicle on Thursdsay, June 16.

It is often said that there is a book in everyone. That is probably right - but what is said less often is that in most cases it is a bad book. Just because everyone could potentially write a book doesn't mean that everyone should.

Despite that, there is no doubt that many of us dream of one day walking into a local bookstore and seeing our name on the front of a fiction or non-fiction bestseller. It must be one of the most commonly daydreamed ambitions we all share.

And that is why it is always a joy when you see someone's dream realised - and tonight in Bath I will get a chance to do just that.

When Moira Young first joined us here at The Bath Chronicle as a PA we all immediately warmed to her. Witty, intelligent and full of ideas she added a real spark to the room and it wasn't long before she said that, happy as she was to be working part-time for us, her real energy and passion was devoted to writing good quality children's fiction.

She told me she already had a good story in her mind and thankfully her tale was slowly coming to fruition on the page as well.

Over the weeks, Moira revealed more and more about her potential book and I could usually tell by her mood how it was going. She poured a lot of herself into it and agonised when it didn't seem to be going as she hoped. This book clearly meant a lot to her and she was determined to get it right.

Well, she did.

And how!

For as you may have read in theses pages previously, when Moira put her work of teen fiction 'out there' it created a virtual stampede from publishers.

It was snapped up for release in a number of countries and the fact that, in an almost unprecedented way, the legendary film director Ridley Scott said he wanted to buy the film rights for this (an as then unpublished work by an unknown author) only accelerated the general excitement for the work.

Now it is finally out and tonight Moira will find herself in Waterstone's here in her hometown Bath, signing copies. Lovely.

I am thrilled for Moira and I hope she goes on to huge success but I hope her tale also enthuses and excites lots of other people that if you do have a dream you should pursue it.

That applies to everything, of course, but I am particularly addressing all of those who think they have that book in them.

I am certain that applies to so many people, including many who have never admitted it to another soul.

Of course, not everyone can have their books published and indeed not everyone will get remotely near finishing the books they may start with great enthusiasm.

But some people will - and some people will get published.

And if you don't believe me then ask Moira. Ask her tonight at around 6.30pm when she is signing copies of Blood Red Road at Waterstone's.

Every epic journey requires that first step and every book requires that first word.

So what are you waiting for?

Write away.

Right away.

Loving reading - and loving Henry VIII!

Over the next couple of weeks Bath is due to go book crazy. And, as an unashamed bookworm I, for one, absolutely love it.

Next Thursday, for instance, there will there be a huge amount of events in schools and beyond to celebrate World Book Day. But before then, from Saturday onwards, the city will be awash with authors and book lovers galore as the Bath Literature Festival begins eight days of lively, varied events.

This year, as well as seeing lots of top class writers mooching around you will also see literally dozens of Bath Chronicle reviewers as well. A couple of months ago we put an appeal in our paper for people to review one of the many events and we were deluged by would-be reviewers who will all be toodling along on our, and your, behalf to give the people’s view of LitFest 2011.

I too will be among the ‘team’ and I’m due to kick off my reviewing stint at the first official event – Dr David Starkey’s talk about Henry VIII on Saturday morning at the Central United Reformed church.Dr Starkey is well known for his TV history but it is his study of old Henry which has given him his most talked about shows. And that is because we, as a nation, are utterly fascinated by Henry VIII.

There have been dozens of monarchs between old Harry and our current queen but none have captured the imagination as much as the portly man who when faced with two of his wives whom he really couldn’t stand was able to shout “off with their heads”. So keen are we on everything Tudor that I can remember one academic complaining that the only things that children are taught about in school in history these days are the two H’s – Henry and Hitler.

As an example, only a few weeks ago the book club we have here in the office focused on another writer who specialises in Mr Six Wives, – Phillipa Gregory. We looked at her book The Other Boleyn Girl which is about the intriguing love triangle between Anne Boleyn, her sister Mary and the King himself. Having already seen the very entertaining film – partly filmed near the village of Holt at Great Chalfield – I was intrigued to read the book and like all of my fellow club members I thoroughly enjoyed it. But we still spent as long talking about Henry and the women that almost literally threw themselves in front of his broad canvas as the book itself.

So I’m very much looking forward to Dr Starkey’s speech on Saturday morning just as much as I’m sure many of you are for the wide variety of other shows that make up this year’s Bath Literature Festival.We are indeed very fortunate to be able to live in a city that has so many festivals and I believe the literature one – and its excellent junior version the Bath Children’s Literature Festival – is particularly important as a way of reminding people that you can really delve into the imagination and learn so much about life, the universe and everything without ever switching on a computer.

Look out in the next two Chronicle’s to see our army of reviewers’ opinions on the big shows and, if all else fails, just curl up with a good book this weekend.

Every 'boss's fear - am I David Brent?

When Ricky Gervais first leapt out of our unsuspecting TV screens and unveiled himself as the boss from hell – David Brent – I, like many others, began a comedy journey that has never ended.

I loved The Office from day one and to my own surprise maybe, just maybe, I now enjoy the witty and intelligent American version even more. It is quite simply a brilliant show – whichever side of the Atlantic you are watching it on.

And yet . . .

The issue for anyone who is a 'boss' at any level is that as you watch David Brent, while other people are howling with laughter, you are thinking “oh my Lord, I’ve said/done that myself”. The problem is, you see, I think that there is bit of Brent in everyone. And a lot of Brent in nearly every boss.

Personally, for example, I work in a tough industry but I believe it’s still possible to be quite a positive soul. And, in my experience, when you smile at the people you work with, you get far more out of them than when you scowl.

The trouble is that’s exactly what David Brent believes as well –- and the great joke is that he is totally self-deluded. So, you do worry.

This all came back to mind afresh this week because we were filmed by a group of students on a creative media studies course at Bath Spa University. They wanted to do a fly-on-the-wall documentary about how the Bath Chronicle is put together and we were delighted to help.

The problem is that it was a mock fly-on-the-wall documentary that was the basis for The Office too and in it Mr Brent and his excellent supporting cast of characters vied to look as good as possible as the cameras whirled. Therefore, as I sat being interviewed by my charming interrogator Ed, all the time I kept thinking “just don’t sound like David Brent”.

I thought I did OK (ish) until I noticed that I had a number of self-congratulatory awards that the paper has won on my wall and I kept thinking of the way in The Office DB kept highlighting some terrible award he’d won years before. It was just one example of how The Office was so brilliantly realised – it exposed all our clichés in a frighteningly well-realised way.

The whole Office phenomenon, however, has at least created a plethora of wonderful “Brent-isms” which can be easily found on the internet. The irony is that he never said most of them in the show but they all sound good enough that he should have done.

So, may I leave you with four Brent-esque slices of officespeak which will be worth dropping into conversation with colleagues today.

• There may be no I in team but there’s a ‘ME’ if you look hard enough.


• If you can keep your head when all around you have lost theirs, then you probably haven’t understood the seriousness of the situation.


• Never do today that which will become someone else’s responsibility tomorrow.


• A problem shared is a problem halved so is your problem really yours or just half of someone else’s?

Anyone fancy a Brent-like dance?

It wasn't a cold...it was MAN FLU!!!!!

This was originally published in the Bath Chronicle on December 23

For the first time in soem five years my regular weekly column didn't appear in the Bath Chronicle on Thursday, December 16.

Considering I have managed to do my column while I was on holiday (and even once when I was a couple of hundred yards away from Auschwitz) it was going to take something pretty spectacular to stop me waxing lyrical for the entertainment of, err, both of you.

Well I had that spectacular thing and it was ... MAN FLU!

The term 'man flu' has been invented by, I suspect, women to explain how men exaggerate when they have a minor cold. But, boy oh boy, was this not a cold...

It had begun a few days before when I had the traditional 'coldy' elements of a bit of a cough, a runny nose and a headache. All annoying but all copeable, too.

During last Tuesday, however, I started to notice that these elements were going but they were being replaced by a thumping headache, aches and pains and a sense that my usual 'get up and go' had got up and gone.

The best cure, I thought, was to head home early and go straight to bed but, as nearly 1,000 of you will know, last Tuesday night was TheBath Chronicle carol service where I was due to do one of the readings.

Prior to that the mayor had kindly invited myself and others to his parlour and I remember pointing out to one of his guests (hi Muddy!) that I thought I had 'man flu' and she said 'if you had flu you'd know about it and you wouldn't be able to get out of bed'. Twelve hours later I knew exactly what she meant.

Somehow, I did manage to get through Tuesday's lovely service but to be honest I started to feel a bit doolally, which is never a good feeling to have when you have to read one of the important lessons. But I survived somehow, raced home to bed and then ...

The next three or four days were pretty horrendous. When you have a stressful job the thought of being able to do nothing can seem quite appealing but when nothing really does mean nothing (i.e. you haven't the energy to even pick up a paper or switch the TV) the reality is more appalling than appealing.

I don't think I am a particularly patient patient either and I also always feel terrible if I'm not able to get into work but for those few days I suffered, as I know many of you have (and perhaps some are now as you are reading this), with the kind of lurgy which seems a million miles away from those almost pleasant minor colds which are normally sorted out by a Lemsip or a Tune.

So, it was with some relief that I headed back to work lastn Monday feeling a million times better than a few days before. I say some relief, however, because someone up there with a sense of humour had decided that my reward for finally getting out of bed should be to find my car unable to move because of the snow. And to make in even 'funnier' I then faced week which even people in Iceland would describe as 'a bit dodgy weather-wise'

So that's man flu. It's not funny. And it's not for women. They just invented it.

I wanna tell you a story...or 150

Originally printed in the Bath Chronicle on Sepetmber 2 to talk about the success of the Chronicle's first ever short story competition to write a story in 250 words in line with our 250th anniversary

Sep 2

When you launch a competition in the paper – particularly one that has never been done before – it is always with a certain amount of trepidation.

Will anybody bother entering? Will people take it seriously? And if nobody enters, is there a big enough cloth to wipe away the egg from my face?
A
ll of these went through my mind when we launched our short story competition as part of our 250th anniversary celebrations.

I came up with the idea of getting readers to write a story about TheBath Chronicle in exactly 250 words – it is not an easy task, not one that wouldn’t require a good amount of thinking and planning and certainly not one we had done before.

Would this be an idea like the Sinclair C5 or playing Emile Heskey up front – ideas that were just not meant to be?

Well, I need not have feared. When we closed the entries earlier this week we totted up that we had received more than 150 – a remarkable figure in my opinion as each entry took time and thought to produce.

What has particularly pleased me is the wide range of ages of those who have taken part. It is said that there is a good book (and presumably a good short story) in everyone and clearly age was no barrier in this context. We have received entries from people of all ages – schoolchildren, students, those in their 20s, 30s and 40s, a big batch from those in their 50s and 60s and then plenty in the 70-90 brackets too.

We deliberately asked for ages on the entry form to get a flavour of who enters and it was amusing to see how many people qualified their ages – ie, hello Dean Gallagher of Odd Down who is nine years AND ten months and also to Suzanna Mead of Southwick who is 41 but was keen to tell me that her son says ‘she looks 35’!

One of the other things we did was to make the subject matter for your story completely open and we’ve been astounded at the variety of subjects covered.

We have seen stories set in the past, set in the future, set on the day of Armageddon and set during a number of major historical events including the Second World War.

In addition we have seen all manner of odd chracters entering TheBath Chronicle newsroom with King George III, Beau Nash, Roman soldiers, talking lions and even the odd gull muscling in as our readers let their imagination run riot.

And now comes the tricky bit. Along with a number of my colleagues (who unwisely agreed to help me judge!) we’ve got to try to whittle down this amazing collection of stories into a shortlist – and it really won’t be easy.

There can ultimately be only one winner but I have been so impressed with the quality and breadth of the entry this year that I’m very tempted to make this an annual contest because clearly we’ve got some very talented story writers out there and it would be great fun to have this battle every year.

251 words next year perhaps?

Lights, cameras...(get into) action if you Love Bath !

Originally printed in the Bath Chronicle on Thursday, August 26 concerning the launch of the LoveBath short film competition

Aug 26

As regular readers of this column may have noticed, I am something of a film buff. From an early age I found every trip to the cinema to be a truly magical experience and even now as I sit in front of the big screen and the lights go down, I know that any problems I may have had as I walked into the movie theatre are completely gone for the next couple of hours as I totally lose myself.

It is for that reason that I’m particularly thrilled this week that we are launching a brand new competition to get people to celebrate their love of film – at the same time as celebrating their love of this amazing city.

For we have today launched our LoveBath film contest as part of our 250th anniversary celebrations where we’re inviting people to make a short movie set in Bath & North East Somerset in less than two minutes and 50 seconds. We hope it will inspire a whole lot of people to get out and about with their cameras and let their imagination loose on the streets of the city.

Of course Bath has famously attracted artists of all kinds throughout the centuries. Jane Austen remains our most prized artistic figure but there are so many others who have made their mark in our community via their writing, painting, poetry and indeed physical artworks up to and including the brilliant Pride of Lions which have lit up our city’s streets this summer.

Beyond that, Bath and all the other constituent parts that make up the B&NES umbrella has inspired a number of TV shows and films and it is often a pleasant surprise to spot well-known local places in the background or even very much the foreground on both the small and big screen.

Now we’re giving people a chance to add to that artistic legacy by making a film which is based in our community and which can be on any subject of people’s choosing.

Perhaps you think that the city regarded as the most romantic in the country would be a brilliant backdrop for a short romantic comedy? Or perhaps you would like to set a thriller in areas such as Larkhall, Twerton, Peasedown or Odd Down? Or, maybe you feel like doing a documentary or even a cartoon celebrating local sport, arts, culture or heritage? The choice is yours – the only limits are your imagination and the two minute and 50 second maximum length which we are imposing as part of our 250th anniversary celebrations.

You can find out more details about our competition at www.thisisbath.co.uk/lovebath.

If our film contest is half as successful as our other ongoing anniversary celebration – where we have invited readers to do a 250 word story set in the Bath Chronicle newsroom – we will be delighted.

When we launched this competition we had no idea how successful it would be but we’ve been absolutely staggered at the response as people of all ages have sent us a wide and often weird collection of short stories.

Well, now it is short films we want so what are you waiting for? Pick up the camera, put your ideas into action and you could be part of Bath’s proud film history.

How I learned how to....walk

There is not much to be said for hitting the ripe old age of 46. However, you do at least think you’ve learnt a few basic life lessons on the way to your ‘half century’.

It was, therefore, something of a shock last Friday afternoon to realise that I didn’t actually know how to walk.

This shock discovery came when I began ‘training’ for the Bath Chronicle Donor Run which is part of the British Transplant Games which is coming to the city next weekend. This fantastic competition will be bringing hundreds of people to Bath who have had many different forms of transplants and we, as a community, can join in the fun by taking part in a 3k or 5k run/walk to raise awareness of the need for people to donate their organs for future transplants.

Not being one of life’s, ahem, natural runners, I had elected to walk alongside the chairman of the local organising committee of the Transplant Games, the irrepressibly bubbly Loraine Morgan-Brinkhurst. With the daunting prospect of having to walk all of three or five kilometres we obviously needed a training session – and step forward Zoe Jackson, who runs Plan Be (see http://www.plan-be.co.uk/). Zoe is a bundle of pure energy and enthusiasm and so she seemed the ideal person to give us tips on how to walk on the not-very-wild side.

Loraine and I, resplendent in our unmissable yellow Bath Chronicle Donor Run t-shirts, decided to go to Royal Crescent/Royal Victoria Park for our hour-long training session. It seemed like a bit of a jolly jaunt for a Friday afternoon to be honest – but what we were to learn in the next 60 minutes was fascinating and when I woke on Saturday morning with one or two aches and twinges, I realised it had done me some good as well.

Zoe’s basic belief is that if you walk right, not only can you increase your fitness levels and your posture but you will instantly look and feel better and start losing inches in the places where you want to lose inches. She looked at our walks before the session – which as you can see from the pictures here were hardly what you would call ‘power walks’ – and then proceeded to give us some tips which I’m happy to pass on now so we can get the whole city ‘walking back to happiness’.

First of all you should walk through your ‘whole foot’. You should aim to walk through the pad of the heels and push off your toes so you are floating rather than putting pressure on the ground. This, apparently, is very good for something I didn’t know I had – my ‘glutes’ (or buttock muscles for those of you not in the know).

Secondly you should stabilise your hips. According to Zoe the best way to achieve this is to imagine you have a glass of water on each hip and you have to keep them full as you walk. This improves your posture and flattens your stomach. Also good for those glutes too.

Thirdly, lengthen your neck. Try to create as much distance as possible between your shoulders and earlobes. This puts your spine in the right position and reduces stiffness. And finally – possibly the visibly tricky one I think – we should use our arms when we walk to vastly increase our speed.

By the time we’d spent an hour together – and as these are two of the most spirited and fun women in Bath it was a pretty enjoyable hour! – there was no doubt about it, I was walking better and my glutes were in fine fettle. Apparently if we can keep this up we should be able to complete our walk next week with no problems at all so if you are in Bath next week and see a strange man extending his neck and using his arms like a robot walking by, give me a wave as I glide on by.

Right, I am now off to learn how to breathe.

250 words for £250

This appeared in the Bath Chronicle on Thursday, July 15, about a competition within the paper. If you live in the Bath area, feel free to enter...


'I wanna tell you a story' . . or rather, I want you to tell me one.

For, as you may have seen if you have read the Bath Chronicle last week we have just launched a special short story competition which we want as many of you as possible to enter.

The competition is part of our celebrations of the fact that the Chronicle will be 250 years old in October. And so, because I am at heart a simple soul, to mark our 250th we have come up with a single prize of £250 and we are asking you to write, yes, 250 words.

That means whoever wins will be paid a pound-a-word and there can't be many other authors that could command such a fee.

The subject of the story is entirely down to you but it must have, at its start, a sentence that we've given you about the Bath Chronicle newsroom. After that it is all down to your imagination and from the entries we have already received, there is no shortage of that out there.

Of course, unless you work in industries such as ours, you may not have a concept of how big or small 250 words is but I suspect many of you will quickly discover it's not nearly as many as you think. This column, for example is around 580 words so I am asking you to come up with the beginning, the middle and the end of an engaging and entertaining story in less than half of this column's length. And trust me, it's not easy.

I know this fact because I have been accused (extremely unfairly in my opinion) of speaking and writing to great excess. It got so bad recently that one of my colleagues looking at the length of someone else's story described it as 'Holliday-esque'. I thought he meant it was a beautiful article full of dazzling insight but it turned out he just meant it was very, very long.

Harsh, very harsh.

Writing in a highly-succinct way does actually take great skill and I always remember being very impressed when I heard that at one time The Sun used to try to have a maximum of 12 words per sentence. Again, that may not sound too scary but just try it. Look at a story in one of our 'heavier' newspapers and try to distill it in Sun-speak into 12 words a sentence with not many paragraphs. Suffice to say you can't be Holliday-esque.

As for our contest, the first entries started to come in earlier this week and I have genuinely been impressed with all of those I've seen although many, sadly, seem to think life is somewhat more exciting in our office than in reality.

So, put your thinking caps on, find a bit of paper (and it doesn't need to be a big bit of paper!) and start weaving your story of an event connected with the Chronicle.

It could be something that has happened in the past, the present or the year 2050 but all you have to do is to make it as entertaining as possible, stick to the word limit and you could find yourself £250 richer.
And that will mean the Chronicle won't be the only people celebrating the number 250 this year...

Winning the Brain of Bath - by a nose

As a generally quite amiable chap I definitely subscribe to the theory that it is not the winning that counts it is the taking part. However, I have to admit that winning is, on the whole, rather better.

I certainly felt that last Thursday at about 10.15pm in the Assembly Rooms when The Bath Chronicle stormed to victory in the always hugely enjoyable Brain of Bath quiz to raise funds for Julian House.

When I first arrived on these shores nearly five years ago, I was quickly made aware that The Brain of Bath was the big one. The quiz of quizzes in this city. The one to win. And, crucially, one we had never won before – even with the huge advantage of having my fellow blogger Hugh Dixon as our not-so-secret weapon. Hugh, as I opined in a column the first year I tested my brain at the Brain, knows things that no one else knows. He can come up with answers when mere mortals don’t even understand the question, and he is worth his weight in the wine he consumes on the night to help him ‘think’.

And yet even with him and fellow boffin-esque quiz addicts Graham Holburn and Paul Wiltshire in the team, the Chronicle had been continually forced to settle for the ‘it’s not the winning that counts...’ line as we trooped out sadly from yet another defeat.

Well, it all changed in 2008 when we won for the first time. Winning definitely felt rather good and so even though we weren’t able to defend our title in 2009 we went for this year’s event quietly hoping for a repeat success. It was tough stuff though because, if you have ever tasted one of Julian House’s quizzes, you will know they don’t make it easy. Indeed, when a question seems a bit too easy you pause before writing down the answer because you can’t believe Cecil Weir and his Julian House team would give such ‘gifts’.

How many I wonder have not put the obvious answer down because it seems too easy and suffered accordingly. Oh, he’s a tricky one that Cecil.

This year we had the usual rounds such as a picture one (who the heck was that Todd Stephens fella anyway)? a fiendishly difficult science round, a testing sport one and the quiz’s undoubted highlight – the ‘smells round’. This is where you are all given little pouches with smells embedded in cotton wool and you have to let your nostrils do the work. This year we had Chanel Number 5, coconut, Brut and banana, for example, and this provoked some fierce sniffing and often fiercer debate. I think I must have had a bit of a cold to be honest because everything smelt to me like apple or Vim. Weird, I know.

By the end of the night, as Cecil tantalisingly counted down the top places, we realised we had won it – albeit by a tiny margin. As a team we trooped up to receive our prize but tried not to look too smug because we all knew everyone else watching was already thinking either ‘damn them’ and ‘oh well, it’s the taking part that counts...’ depending on their mood.

So, here’s to defending our hard-earned title in 2011. And here’s hoping that next year Cecil will save my blushes by putting both apple and Vim into the smells round.

Politics is boring? You CANNOT be serious

Go on, admit it. This election is turning out to be far more exciting, fun and unpredictable than you ever imagined, isn’t it?

Now, I know not everybody subscribes to my long-held belief that politics is the most underrated sport in this country but I really hope that more and more people are enjoying what is turning out to be a splendidly confusing electoral battle.

Let’s be honest, for the past few elections we’ve pretty much known who was going to win before a vote was cast. It’s a bit like watching Premiership football – if you’re a Wigan fan you have great hopes but you always secretly know that Manchester United or Chelsea are going to dash them spectacularly.

But in this General Election absolutely nothing is fixed and all the bosses of all the teams in this year’s campaign must be feeling suddenly very hopeful at the moment.

What really set the rabbit running in the whole campaign was last week’s first ever TV debate between the three main party leaders. I said in this column last week (perhaps more in hope than expectation) that I hoped people would tune in – and millions duly did. And, if that wasn’t enough, many of them clearly changed their vote (or at least their current thinking) on the basis of what they saw.

It was once said in a very different age that a week is a long time in politics – nowadays just 90 televised minutes is all it takes to change a political landscape.

If we agree (and let’s be honest we all agree) that Nick Clegg was the victor on the first night, then both of the other leading candidates shouldn’t panic. Instead they should feel encouraged that a good performance can totally transform perspectives – as Mr Clegg proved last week. It was, after all, only the first of three gruelling boxing rounds.

Before that debate the opinion polls had been steady, if a little inconsistent but afterwards they became confused, if a little crazed. What this showed above all was that none of the parties have clearly made the big breakthrough they yearn for and the electorate is as volatile as an Icelandic volcano.

The national debate has obviously helped keep up the local interest as well and the seats we are covering are very lively indeed.

In Bath, for example, no sooner had we finished putting together a page in the Bath Chronicle asking ten questions to all the candidates we knew about, than another four candidates duly emerged at the last minute to give us all an extraordinarily and unexpectedly diverse choice.

One of the new candidates whose name and identity are not being revealed, certainly caused a stir when he walked into our office looking vaguely like an extra from The Magical Mystery Tour/Mad Max/Rock The Casbah video (take your pick) and from that point on we realised that this campaign was truly a one-off.

Now I know I will never be able to convince everyone that this is all more fun than a night out with Alan Partridge but I just think this election is one that we should revel in because it is just so hard to call. And it is changing by the minute.

The truth is, the only thing that is certain about this election now is that nothing is certain.

Politics fun? You better believe it.

Nicolas Cage - a gentleman and an honorary Bathonian

We, here at the Bath Chronicle, are doing an eight page picture supplement to mark the remarkable night last Thursday when Nicolas Cage switched on the Bath city lights. Here is the introductory piece I have done for it which sums up my feelings of a pretty extraordinary occasion. The picture above shows me and our managing director Sarah Irvine witht eh Hollywood A Lister (and yes, he is the one in the middle...)

Thursday, November 26, is a night that the city of Bath will simply never forget.

When it was first announced that Nicolas Cage was to turn on the city’s lights, I’m sure there were many who thought it was a ‘wind up’ or something that would actually never happen in reality.

But there we were, in our thousands last week, to see the reality come true as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood kicked off Bath’s Christmas celebrations in style.

It wasn’t just the fact that Nicolas Cage switched on the lights that made it so magical, it was the way he treated his adopted home town – and the way it treated him back. Even though there were upwards of 10,000 people struggling to get a view of the proceedings, the atmosphere, humour and spirit amongst this huge crowd was simply fantastic. Even the rain, which had been Bath’s constant companion last week, had a night off because nothing was going to ruin the night Hollywood came to our city.

As for Nicolas Cage, there are many things we could say to compliment him but what struck me most was that he came over as a real gentleman. He didn’t rush through proceedings as if he had something more important to do, he made time to talk to people and sign autographs. And when he spoke it was with a sincerity that belied the traditional view of his profession.

He was, in truth, an even better man than we had dared imagined and he made the night a special one for everyone that came into direct or indirect contact with him.

As far as the city goes, it was also a gift in publicity terms. The incredulity about the fact that the city had secured Nicolas Cage to turn on its lights was spread throughout the national and indeed international media but just as importantly was the fact that many of the media outlets picked up on what the star actually said.

The phrase that most hit me was when Mr Cage described Bath as “the most beautiful city in the world”. This is a man, remember, who has filmed and lived in some spectacular cities across the globe and yet none of them compares to the city of Bath in his eyes. This is a quote which must be used in every bit of literature that Bath tourism chiefs send out in future because the value of this cannot be understated.

We hope that Nicolas Cage realises that his simple actions last week have made him many, many friends in our community. He truly has now become an honorary Bathonian.

Why I respect, admire and support our servicemen

The context for this piece is that in the Chronicle letters two weeks ago a writer, Tony Culver, said we should be ashamed of our British military history and he said our armed forces did not deserve our respect. He has since repeated that claim in a new letter this week - and this was the response I made in my column, printed on November 12.

Whenever I talk to local community groups it is usually only a matter of time before the Bath Chronicle’s famous (or should I say infamous)? letters pages are discussed.

I know that our pages are avidly read by people and the contents are widely discussed and debated.

This is because, by and large, we have an exceptional letters section which allows our readers to pontificate on all manner of hot topics which really gets their debating juices flowing.

I am just like everyone else in that a number of the letters that appear are ones I fully agree with and others are totally against my own personal view. And that is fine, because they are your letters pages – not mine.

However, occasionally, just occasionally, one letter gnaws away at me so I cannot ignore it. And that is what has happened this week with the second letter we print by Tony Culver who has attacked our armed forces and their long history.

It is his view, one he passionately believes, and he has every right to be heard (and printed). But so do we who fundamentally disagree.

I could talk at some length about many of the issues Mr Culver raises about war, peace and our armed forces generally but I just want to focus on one core subject, one which I think challenges everyone who believes in ‘peace at all cost’.

And that is the Second World War.

You could make a fairly powerful argument against nearly every war that has been fought but the Second World War was different – very, very different. When you are growing you play games with goodies and ‘baddies’, and this was a war when those terms genuinely (and uniquely?) apply.

Yes, there are many innocent German people who lost their lives in that conflict, but there is no denying that the Nazi regime that led them to war was pure evil. And pure evil can not – and must not – be ignored.

Mr Culver’s plea of peace is absolutely commendable – but it only works if both sides sign up. As we know Britain did everything it could to appease Hitler – and all he did was to sneer at our weakness.

Had we ignored his growing militarism to keep our own ‘purity of peace’ we would have seen Europe enslaved, Britain completely overrun (the Nazis would hardly have respected our ‘neutrality’) and we would probably have seen the total and utter destruction of the Jewish race on our continent.

I visited Auschwitz last year and saw for myself the appalling effect of Hitler’s insane beliefs and anyone that can possibly think he would have been stopped in his evil plans to create an Aryan master race by ‘peaceful methods’ is almost dangerously naive. Hitler had to be stopped – and the only way, sadly, he was going to be stopped was at the end of a gun.

In his latest letter, Mr Culver also said that the freedom we have now isn’t worth the price of the millions who died for it. He is wrong. Freedom, like democracy, is something that we in the west take for granted – ask the millions in the world who don’t have it how much they were prepared to sacrifice to gain it and you may not see such a flip attitude to freedom. And that has been earned mainly by our brilliant, committed and dedicated armed forces for whom we all owe our pride, respect and loyalty.

I will, as editor, continue to print Mr Culver’s words and those of people who support him but as an individual I feel nothing but incredible pride for the people who lost their lives in British uniforms so that I, and Mr Culver, can have the right to debate these issues.So, yes I will remember them all.

And with genuine pride.

Bath is an amazingly Creative city

On Thursday night unless the BBC has a dramatic change of heart, the prestigious Question Time show will have a record audience as well-known Holocaust denier Nick Griffin joins the illustrious panel. It may not be November 5 just yet – but boy, oh boy, expect fireworks.

On Tuesday night I too had the pleasure of sitting on a Question Time style panel – but thankfully there wasn’t a BNP activist in sight.

For this proudly non-political panel was one that was there to highlight one of Bath’s greatest hidden assets – it’s lively and highly imaginative creative sector.

he event had been organised by the burgeoning Creative Bath group which is aiming to bring together the many different creative industries in our city. The term “creative industry” is obviously quite a wide-ranging one and among the members of the group are people involved in all forms of the written media, TV and film, writing, web designing, music, photography and other less ‘obvious’ creative fields such as architecture.

What unites them all is that they use their imagination and their brains to produce their wares. And what an enjoyably eclectic bunch they are too.

At this latest meeting a number of us were asked to be part of a panel discussion on how the recession and general downturn has affected the media/creative sector. Chaired enthusiastically by the ever-energetic Greg Ingham of MediaClash, I shared that panel with Bob Mytton, Malcolm Brinkworth, Mike Ellis, Richard Daws and John Weir and between us we represented a wide range of different organisations all of whom have had different challenges during the past 12 months.

I found all my fellow guests to be fascinating and full of insight and between us and the equally engaged audience I think we enjoyed a pretty lively debate.

What virtually all of us in the packed Ustinov Theatre shared was the realisation that yes, the creative sector has had a tough time, but that hadn’t dented the optimism, positivism or the imagination of those of us in this fascinating sector.W

hat this night also illustrated was just how vibrant the creative scene is in Bath. Organisations such as the Chronicle, Future and MediaClash are all quite high-profile but there are many pockets in and around the city where smaller groups of people are producing top-class work that collectively is providing millions of pounds for our city’s economy.

The figures of how much the creative industries bring to our area are staggering and it was revealed on Tuesday night that Bath is doing as well as anywhere in the South West in terms of its creative enterprise.

I am fairly certain that in many towns or cities which are much bigger than Bath you would not get the same number of people attending such events as this and Bath does seem to be like a magnet for many people who work in the creative field. It seems somewhat ironic that in a city which is so rightfully proud of its past that if you scratch at the surface you will find many people who are working hard in the industries of the future.

I also sense that, although the Creative Bath organisation already has hundreds of active and enthusiastic members, there may be many other people out there who are still not aware of the benefits this group brings. If that sounds like you then can I push you to the group’s website (www.creativebath.org) where you can find out how you can join an organisation which may not only be good for you as an individual, but could also boost your business and help our city’s economy grow.

PS I bet tonight’ s Question Time won’t be nearly as inspiring . . .

Local newspapers are not biased lackeys. Honest!

Every editor of every local newspaper ever will at some point, (and usually quite frequently), be accused of being biased.

Because we live in a world where everybody has an opinion on everything, a lot of people assume that local newspapers (and their editors) are equally one-sided in their views and will do everything in their power to persuade others to follow it.

Well, guess what, – you are half right.

Yes, we journalists are as opinionated and passionate about causes as the next man but we are also a pretty professional bunch in the local media and we all subscribe to the view that the only bias we can ever exhibit is to our readers.

Opinions can be made in columns, blogs like this or in our Comment piece (and we are not shy of launching campaigns on issues we care about) but the news is 100 per cent untainted and totally free of bias.
Period.

I say this today because last Friday Bath (and the Bath Chronicle offices) had a visit from David Cameron.

The visit of the Tory leader provoked a lively debate on our website, www.thisisbath.co.uk, and it didn’t take long for someone to accuse my erstwhile opinion-free deputy Paul Wiltshire for being akin to a Tory lackey.

This, we found particularly amsuing, as a few weeks ago he had been called a Lib-Dem lackey as well. He is clearly therefore a lackey – albeit one who is awfully confused about his politics

I suffered the same at a previous newspaper I worked at in Tamworth, in the Midlands. That was a very tight Labour/Tory marginal seat and I was frequently told by the Labour lot that they knew that I was a Tory while the Tories equally said that they knew I was a Labour man. This to be proved that I was doing my job right – if all politicians think you’re against them, then you’re probably putting the interests of the readers above the parties. And that’s how it should be.

Returning to Mr Cameron, I can’t deny that I was very grateful to our local Conservative hopeful, Fabian Richter, for bringing his party leader into our office where I was able to chat to him about issues of concern in our industry and our community. He was kind, generous with his time and tried to meet and talk to as many of our staff as possible.

Even one or two dyed-in-the-wool Labourites (for yes, shock horror, our office is the same as every other in covering all political persuasions!) were quietly impressed I think.

I then went to hear Mr Cameron address the people of Bath at his very interesting and informative public meeting. He was put on the spot by local people on a wide variety of important issues and he handled himself extremely well to my eyes.

It says a lot, I think, about how politics has become so centerist that I mentioned to my colleague Paul (he’s the Tory/Lib-Dem lackey remember) that I think if you analysed what was said , you would not have heard anything from David Cameron that Tony Blair would not have said. I’m sure both Mr Blair and Mr Cameron would be pretty aghast by that comparison but the truth is there is a consensus in our politics today that means that sometimes it is different suit, different party – but the same words, themes and ideals.

Friday’s visit also showed that Bath is very much in the Tory’s sights. We already have a very good sitting MP I think (oh my God I’m being biased again!) but we also have a very strong Tory challenger too now (oh my God more bias!) and so next May/June's elections suddenly looks very interesting indeed ...

Please send all your accusations of bias in this article to s.holliday@bathchron.co.uk.