"And in the end..."

“It’s been a long, long, long time” (obligatory Beatles reference out of the way early), but sad to say today finally marks the end here - and for too many far finer others - at favourite newspaper Metro.

Sorry especially to be bidding farewell to so many cherishable colleagues - and with fond memories of dozens more from the past - while grateful to not only them but everyone who has helped on stories. And also, such readers.

One of the earliest glimpses here into just what human good could be done - and galvanised in people picking up a copy each day - came when writing way back when about Odette Mupenzi, a young woman whose family had been slaughtered by Hutu militias during the Rwandan genocide.

She managed to somehow shelter and survive - though did have most of her face blasted off by a gunman.

Nottinghamshire-based charity Aegis Trust got in touch, wondering whether we might do a story about her as they tried to raise £50,000 to bring her to Britain for potentially life-transforming reconstructive surgery.

They had been promised matched funding up to £25,000 and hoped Metro readers might contribute a little to help inch towards the target.

By the end of that very same Monday the front-page and inside story ran, all the money necessary had been generated - and Odette later came over, grateful for the readership’s support and gratifyingly appearing to feel more assured about her prospects and, well, facing the world.

When travelling the world’s warzones and humanitarian disasters areas for the paper, or supporting causes from back home, it has never failed to inspire just how supportive Metro has been for so many relief efforts - but just how generous an ever-empathetic readership has been in response.

Tearfund told how taken happily aback they were by the strength of donations after travelling with them undercover in Zimbabwe, at a time when Robert Mugabe’s rule, persecution, hyper-inflation and a pummelling cholera epidemic had the country seeming on the verge of collapse.

Similar outpourings of compassion have followed coverage of suffering in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Cambodia, a year on from the earthquake in Nepal, several visits witnessing the desperate plight of refugees on Lebanon’s border with Syria.

Most recently, of course, Metro readers - like Britons across the country - have dug deep yet again for all those, in Turkey and yet again so many Syrians, devastated by the February earthquakes.

Having once been described on the phone by a colleague as “the paper’s worthy correspondent”, it’s been heartwarming to know how much backing the paper has given - under stellar editors first Kenny Campbell and then, until his much-regretted departure now too, Ted Young.

That goes too for everyone in such a co-operative newsroom - for all the harrowing poignancy of hearing from so many victims in such dire straits and so many aid workers going beyond the call to help.

Of course there has been plenty of pleasure as well, privileged to be able to follow through the London 2012 story - from early on being given the news reporter brief for the capital's bid, and becoming about the only one in the office who fancied London's chances over those of favourites Paris.

Then came all the more controversies and doubts, summer golden-glow glory - especially uplifting at the Paralympics - and legacy questions to follow.

Branching out from news pages to sports , with daily diaries from the 2006 and 2010 World Cups and the (England-free) 2008 Euros, also of course appealed.

Not to forget various 60 Second Interviews, diverse news features, and even the odd piece or few about music. (And not all of them about the Fab Four.)

But most memorable will be the teams here - collaborative, intrepid, focused but also friendly and funny and supportive, whether on an everyday basis or in other struggles. 

Metro the newspaper might never have had the resources dealt elsewhere but every day everyone on a uber-tight team produced an engaging, penetrating, really really really good read. 

And proved you could do so without being a stereotypical newsroom out of central casting, full of people ranting and snarling and sniping and raving

(Apologies to anyone if ever doing so here.)

Like to think we cared about our readers, and vice versa.

Even the occasional (or, er, not so occasional) complainants.

Ah, a favourite letter to the paper followed a story about Scotland coming to Wembley to play England, and the Tartan Army leaving 10,000 cans strewn across Trafalgar Square.

A reader from Glasgow wrote: “I have to say I’m disgusted - there was supposed to be 20,000 fans there so what were they doing, sharing?”

Another, unimpressed as many were by one splash, pithily suggested: “Aidan Radnedge has a promising future behind him.”

Oh, how right he was.

Thank you, Metro newspaper, and everyone involved.

To again quote George Harrison (“one more time”): "See you ‘round the clubs..."

*****

(And now for some things completely indulgent - a few [okay, many] front and middle back pages from the ages...)

As mentioned above, Odette Mupenzi's horrific plight appeared to touch generous Metro readers who very swiftly did what they could to help...

Reporting undercover from Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe - at a time when Western journalists were banned - proved neve-racking as well as harrowing, and yet so inspiring was the defiant courage of people there putting themselves in yet more grievous danger by doing whatever they could to defy his rule which finally ended far too late.

A first visit to Afghanistan was embedded with the military, aided by essential and endangered local interpreters many of whom have since been left to their Britain-shaming fate..

Subsequent travels took in itinerant camps in and nearby Kabul, the cavernous mountain homes of Bamyan where widows feared what would ultimately prove to be the Taliban's return and remote clinics for sadly-sunken addicts - every day of every year still brings yet more misery, for women and girls especially...

Today marks 12 years since Bashar al-Assad's crackdown an pro-democracy demonstrators and the start of Syria's civil war killing hundreds of thousands of people and displacing many millions more. And, as heartachingly seen all often across the border from Syria in overwhelmed Lebanon, too too often it is of course children left most lost and vulnerable - all the more so after last month's earthquake, what seems an even more gratuitous cruelty...

Visiting Nepal for the one-year anniversary of the 2015 earthquake sadly showed how little had been done yet to even begin rebuilding, as a newly-appointed minister in charge of recovery admitted in a rare interview - while the ruins were one thing, the increased danger to so many young lives was more chilling...

Long after the end of what some there call "the palaver" - that is, the civil war - Sierra Leone's scars might still run deep but it was as encouraging to hear from former child soldiers rehabilitated into community activities as it was unnerving to hear them dispassionately describing their past crimes - and how they were both trained and drugged to commit them...

More generosity from Metro readers helped support efforts by actors Neil Morrissey and Hugo Speer to boost refugee rescues and accommodation on the beleaguered Greek island of Lesbos...

...and yet for all too many more, what too-little help there is comes grievously too late... 

Repression rules so often worldwide, though there will also invariably and thankfully be survivors, victims' families, witnesses and campaigners doing their best to seek redress - both abroad and home...

Steve Kelly, an Everton-supporting hero among Liverpool supporters for his valiant decades of campaigning for Hillsborough justice, was among those appreciating this pointed front page - though all credit goes to him and the other families so let down not only going back to 1989 but 1981...

Metro's front page the day after the July 7 attacks on London - the morning after the London 2012 bid celebrations a day before and what felt a lifetime ago - featured the bloodied and bandaged face of traumatised survivor Michael Henning, who has continued to urge a message of defiance and unity in the wake of such atrocity...

Both Metro's paper and website have long shown strong support and concern for mental healthcare - as has, indeed, the company as well as colleagues. The royal "Fab Four" might be no more these days, but they teamed up to make one year's London Marathon mental health-focused - and highlighting inspiring individualstories, though here also penned this online (after a first visit inside Buckingham Palace) on how targeting stigma should only be part of the battle...

Ah, to cheerier times and tales - there was briefly a newsroom idea, as England closed in on safety in the final Oval Test in 2005 to finally win back the Ashes (and how), to send the Chief Reporter out to get a Kevin Pietersen-style peroxide 'do (before presumably deciding his moptop was daft enough already)...

Bookmakers apparently paid out £1million after London beat favourites Paris to clinch the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics - that 20/1 on Andy Murray to win tennis singles gold looks an even better bet in retrospect. There was and is plenty skewwhiff with the IOC, and indeed London's bid, execution and aftermath - ah, but what a summer it felt, certainly once "Super Saturday" had happened, and then the even-more-celebratory Paralympics. Ah, but it's all been talked about before (oh, while only too glad to keep on doing so since)...

The front page tribute to David Bowie, said to be valuable still on eBay, was also framed in now-outgoing editor Ted Young's office - and made occasional appearances behind intrepid reporter Dominic Yeatman when he skewered ministers with questions at the televised Covid-19 briefings. Herbie Flowers, coolest dude in Ditchling and fab former bassman for both Bowie and on Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side", offered some warm and admiring words down the phone from his East Sussex home (a handy number from previous days on the Brighton Argus...)

...and talking of musical legends from Ditchling...

Other pieces on music for Metro included an interview with Bill Haley's son on the 60th anniversary of "Rock Around The Clock", another with Ralph McTell as he rerecorded "Streets Of London" ("Streets Of London!") for homelessness charity Crisis and, oh, of course some band named The Beatles. As seen here beneath the 3 Savile Row rooftop - no, wait, that's just the newsdesk passing by after a Christmas lunch out the other year...

For all the justified praise Metro has received in recent years for front pages and front page headlines, the system behind them is reasonably straightforward - everyone collaboratively pitches in ideas...and then the editor takes the credit. (He jokes so too, honest.)

That's enough about Boris - now here's a true national leader and legend (#COYS #OneOfOurOwn), plus some more football but from the back of the book to follow...

Well, there's always been plenty to write about, these past few frentically news-jammed years especially - sorry not to later write one of these for 2023...

It's been a lengthy and much-appreciated spell here at Metro, full of fulfilment and enjoyment and not-at-all...

Cheers.