A deputy editor who has served his community for over two decades signed off to readers with a confession.

Steve Larner worked for the Milton Keynes Citizen for 21 years as chief reporter, news editor and latterly deputy editor but in a farewell message to readers he had something to get off his chest.

“After two decades on the Milton Keynes Citizen, it’s my last day so confession time – I don’t actually live here,” wrote the 51-year-old.

“But add up the 950-ish weeks’ worth of days – some of them very long days – and I bet I have spent more of my life in MK than those who live here but work elsewhere.

“I’ll stake a claim to this great city with the best of them and have defended it against brickbats and the inevitable cowpats.

“My wife and I considered moving here in the 1990s…..we settled in nearby Northants and I found no disadvantage in not ‘living over the shop’.

“My daily commute made me see MK from an outsider’s view and my daily work – I saw it intimately and from within.

“But for a journalist the people are the real story and Milton Keynes has proved a rich seam.

“I feel privileged to have helped tell their stories – saving Bletchley Park for the nation, catapulting Milton Keynes towards top flight football or uniting diverse communities in a changing world.

“I salute all whose paths I have crossed, and apologies to all I have unwittingly just crossed, in my working life.”

Steve is yet to reveal what his future plans are.

Comments

Jimbo (07/10/2009 08:51:31)
Well done Steve. Selwyn would have been proud of you.
From a fellow hack at Herts Ad 1980.

A pedant (07/10/2009 11:19:00)
‘Future plans’ (last par) — what are the other sort of plans?