Leonard Kimble didn’t need that kind of encouragement. He was born with the urge to go far, but not for a poxy, small-town newspaper like this where the majority of people who read it turned to the births, marriages and deaths section for their world-news fix. He couldn’t wait to dump the job in which they treated him more like an office boy than a trainee reporter. He made tea more than he made news. And let’s face it, he thought as he made tea yet again, this time for his grandmother, there was no news to be made in Langbridge. The Big Flood of 1947, in which three people, five cows and thirteen sheep died, was the last time they made the nationals, and that event, plus the 1966 World Cup Final, were the only two highlights anyone in Langbridge ever talked about. Since then it had to make do with the turning on of the Christmas lights in the town centre for anything approaching excitement. He measured tea into the china teapot, called out to his grandmother: ‘Won’t be long!’ That’s another thing about Langbridge, he groused in his head; all they seem to do around here was make tea.
