| Letters to Shields Gazette |
| During the summer of 1997, when I was supposed to be revising for my GCSEs, I amused myself by writing silly hoax letters to my local newspaper, the self-proclaimed "Voice of South Tyneside", the Shields Gazette (Britain's oldest provincial evening newspaper, they'll have you know!). A bit sad, I know, but it kept me amused. Hope you enjoy them too. Here are some of the ones they printed: |
| Little Thought Their title, not mine, as is the case with all these letters. This was my first letter, complaining about a Thought for the Day they'd never actually printed. Note the name I used, I can't believe they put that in |
| Fears Dispelled Inspired by a stream of pointless letters, usually sent in by old bags thanking the anonymous person who handed in their bus pass after they lost it for the 86th time, as if someone would keep it for themselves and try to use it |
| No Parking The first letter of my short campaign to convince the borough that the council were going to build a "Superpark". Unfortunately they only gave the initial of the correspondent, not his first name, which would have been Nigel |
| Ferry Link Heritage Not a particularly amusing letter, but this experiment to see whether or not the "Voice of South Tyneside" would recognise a blatently made-up local address did yield an interesting result. And it mentions the Superpark |
| Alarming Facts Another silly letter written in response to one of the Gazette's "What Do You Think?" questions, their half-hearted effort at rabble rousing |