Sooner or later it was bound to happen. Running Egremont Today has often felt like flying an aeroplane without an engine and now it has finally fallen out of the sky. The wonder is that it stayed up for 242 months.
Those who worked for ET were amateurs, driven only by love or madness, striving for professional standards. As the demand for space grew remorselessly in pace with the increase in our circulation the stress increased, until we simply reached breaking point.
In this edition we want to carry the stories of our community for one more time and to say sorry for not being strong enough to keep going for a few more years. "Why have you done that?" and "What are we going to do now?" are reproaches we have already heard. At this moment we have the bitter taste of failure.
But that does not mean that the past 242 months have been a failure. "The only thing you get to keep is what you give away," sings Francis Dunnery, and by giving away ET to the people of Egremont and District we have carried our readers with us. Though we certainly started as "a Labour Party propaganda sheet", most of our readers have come to see us as a voice for our community, celebrating the amazing achievements of its children and reinforcing its self belief. Alan Cleaver referred to our paper as the glue that holds Egremont together. It is a very long-lasting kind of superglue and things will not fall apart after we have gone.

A Rattle Bag of Memories

Just a random rattle bag of memories that we cherish:

the way all our writers "rose to the occasion" last month, honouring the feelings of shocked and grieving people in a manner that was "quietly caring and respectful" (Letters, page 18);

meeting our inspiring visitors from Tanzania who put our whole lives into perspective;

walking with Francis Dunnery round Ennerdale, crossing torrents in stormy weathers with local and international fans eager to create opportunity for local children;

attending Paul Bainbridge's master class in sculpture, gripping enough to lure boys, Pied Piper like, away from England's opening game in the 2006 World Cup;

visiting schools, to see how they cherished friendship with other children in lands as remote as Mexico and Sri Lanka;

seeing the eyes of those witches, little girls clutching dolls but boring a hole through Macbeth in that fabulous Orgill production - no pretending there;

local sportsmen and women challenging the world's best;

people triumphing over disability, reaching levels of achievement beyond the vision of the able bodied and neurotypicals;

grandchildren aspiring to follow in the footsteps of granddads at Crab Fair, running, wrestling, showing their animals with pride, climbing Jeremy Deller’s greasy pole, and gurning;

starting up Rosie in the middle of the night because we felt that it was so important to get our news out to our readers before the professionals early the very next morning;

recognising the potential of a brilliant successor who, for a little while, gave us hope that we could go on and on;

and handing out hundreds of copies of ET to amazed Londoners at the Tate Gallery last month.

Our madness was infectious. Local families rushed to get our papers collated and folded so that we could start delivery an hour after printing or at the crack of dawn. "Are those Budget supplements ready yet," demanded Des at 2o’clock one morning.
Considering that we came into being as a Labour Party newsletter, designed to keep members in touch, this does not seem to have much to do with politics. It is just that every article proclaimed the strength of ties that bind humanity together, and that there is such a thing as community. If that is socialism, let it be. May be this has nothing to do with Egremont Today, but when we started Egremont had a Conservative majority, in terms of seats on Copeland Council, and in the last general election it supported Jamie Reed more strongly than any other ward in Copeland.
Our biggest regret is that the significance of what we have been doing has never been understood in our own party. Orthodox political communication remains the trading of recriminations between opponents.

Thank you!

Thank you to all our readers for supporting us so well and telling us what we must publish next month.
Thank you to all our friends on our committee who have patiently advised me and tried to keep my feet on the ground, and especially to Dennis who has stood with me so many hours in a cold printshop helping to resolve Rosie’s little problems and giving me the confidence to cope when he was not there.
Thank you to all our unpaid contributors, including Adam who has never failed to produce a completely original garden page every month; Diane Hampton with her delicious recommendations, still available in her book on sale in Lowes Court; David Wood, and later Richard Lee and Lindsey Gray with Godspot, our inspiration, reaching out to people of all faiths and none with equal respect; and of course Jamie Reed and Brian Simpson for addressing superbly written articles to local readers.
Thank you to the dozens of families who have helped us by collating and delivering our paper to big estates or remote villages.
Thank you to Jules, John and all our friends at Printexpress who have helped when we were faced with overwhelming problems and are now printing our final edition.
Thank you to Connie for helping me all the time in so many ways and enduring the behaviour of a driven man.
Thank you to our advertisers whose faith in our ability to deliver month after month in all seasons has kept us afloat and even put us in a position to make substantial donations each year to causes our readers support. They had the forbearance to understand that one amateur was trying to do the job of a team of professionals, and forgave us when we made mistakes. We wish to assure them that we have always recognised that this day would come and have held sufficient funds in reserve to refund in full the value of unpublished advertisements. The process may take several weeks.

Peter Watson
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