Bohemia Village Voice

I Davenport writes (Jul 2006)

Like antiques, nostalgia is a luxury the value of which increases with time. The more distant a memory, the more rosy-tinted our view of it becomes. This reader left Bohemia (alright, Hastings actually – but I spent a good deal of time in Bohemia) in 1995. Since then I’ve visited twice, very briefly. It felt good to walk along Bohemia Road again, visiting the friends who still live close by, and it was heartening to see that the area had improved distinctly.

I wonder how many of this newsletter’s rapidly swelling readership have stopped to consider how much time it takes to put together even so petite a publication as Bohemia Village Voice each week? We take newspapers for granted, don’t we? We pay only a few pence for them and then discard them, often within hours of being bought. But each one is a labour of love, the culmination of many minds and many heads.

I’ve only recently become a subscriber, so have only seen a couple of issues, but for me Bohemia Village Voice is a glimpse into the past, a pleasant reminder of happy times, and it brings Bohemia back to life in a way that emails and phone calls cannot do. I’m not religious, yet I found it warming to see the pleasure so many people got out of the opening celebrations of the new extension to Park Road Methodist Church. I enjoyed Dave Kent’s piece, Varmint News, in Issue 25 enormously, because of its very English sense of humour, something I miss living abroad. I like the illustrations too, so different to the lurid eye-catchers employed by most editors.

I’ve spent the last ten or so years since I left England in various countries, working on various projects, including doing a fair amount of writing. It takes concentration, dedication and patience to complete anything in life, especially when you’re not being paid to do it.

I’d like to thank Bohemia Village Voice for providing me with a welcome taste of nostalgia each week. Keep up the good work.

I. Davenport, Seattle, Washington, USA