Good Guy Warren

Warren, wearing the cap, with colleagues as the newspaper was 'put to bed'
at 2am on the night Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008

If you were to ask me how long ago this picture was taken, I'd say a year or two. Actually, it is seven years. It was a very late night on 5 November 2008, and the team at the newspaper were still working on putting the next day's edition together so that it could include the news of Barack Obama's election as the new US president.

Sat at his desk and wearing a baseball cap, as he always did, is Warren. He was the link man who transferred the completed newspaper pages from the newsroom to the print room where they would be loaded onto printing press plates to create thousands of copies of the newspaper. The process was all done electronically. However, Warren's job entailed far more than this crucial go-between step.

Last night was his final shift. He has now retired having worked at the newspaper since 1966 - an entire lifetime career at the same place of work.

For the best part of the last eight years I worked closely with Warren to produce the final pages each night, and for most of the past few years we sat side by side. He was an incredible work colleague, being reliable, calm, knowledgeable, methodical and precise. He would work until everything that needed to be done had been, even when it entailed continuing into the small hours of the morning (observe the tired eyes on the picture above).

You always felt comfortably reassured by his presence. I'm going to miss his observations on life and the news, and our conversations about music and films.

Beyond being a great work colleague, he was also a true friend willing to help out - and he did on a number of occasions when my scooter bike conked out in heavy rains and he would give me a lift to collect it after the rain had stopped. Once or twice he provided a lift home when I was without my bike and had missed the last bus due to the lateness of the hour.

Time flies by so quickly. One minute you are just getting to know someone and before you know it you've shared an intertwined daily work life for the best part of a decade.

Warren is a rarity in these times, having spent his whole working life with the same company. He is going to be a hard act to follow. And just as I miss Good Guy Eddie, I'm going to miss Good Guy Warren. It has been a joy and privilege to have worked so closely with him for so many years. I wish him well in his well deserved retirement.

All American High Revisited

Earlier this month I came across a touching documentary about the lives of young Americans growing up in the early 1980s.

It offered a glimpse back to a time and a place that no longer exists, but one that many would recognise either because they lived through that era, or have seen it portrayed in movies and TV shows.

When the original documentary All American High was made, there was no internet or social media, no cell phones, and no reality TV.

For one year, documentary-maker Keva Rosenfeld turned his camera on the Class of 1984 at the school, capturing the lives and times of young students at a typical US high school (in this instance Torrance High, in the southern reaches of Los Angeles).

Now, 30-odd years later All American High Revisited is the original documentary updated with some of the former students reflecting on the school experience and their adult lives.

There is nothing startling to be seen - no great or shocking revelations to be found, but it is precisely this ordinariness that gives the documentary its beauty. It is a time capsule showing how things used to be, in what now seems like a quaint and simpler era. We see students in the classroom discussing the pros and cons of nuclear deterrents, learning about home-making and married life, we see them preparing for the Home Coming Queen parade, dating, and attending keg parties. There are the punkers, metallers, preppies and cheerleaders, and even a social dancing event after-hours in a shopping mall.

Choosing exchange student Riikkamari Rauhala, from Finland, as the narrator was an inspired decision. She was attending the school for a year and we get to see much of the activities through her outsider eyes, with insights and perspectives that might not have been possible from a homegrown student already versed in the culture of being a young American in the 1980s.

Most of the documentary is footage from the original film, but the "revisited" segment comes towards the end when we meet Riikkamari as she is today, in her 50s, along with a few of the other students who are now grown up. Narrator Riikkamari had intended to go to the five-year reunion after leaving Torrance High in 1984, but didn't. Like many of us, she soon found herself pre-occupied with living her life. The schooldays and friends faded away.

All American High Revisited is fun. For Riikkamari and the others it was a chance to stop the clock for a moment and look back at where they once where, and where they are today. For viewers it is perhaps an opportunity to do the same, while also enjoying a reminder of the music, the hairstyles and the ambiance of the early-to-mid 1980s.

The documentary has been released digitally in the UK and a number of other countries. It can be viewed through digital download on popular sites (iTunes, Amazon, Virgin Media, etc).
All American High Revisited is due to be released in the US during September.

Hurricane tree is no more

The toppled tree after last year's two hurricanes, and the now empty site

A sprawling tree that once provided some cool shade at the corner of a road on the outskirts of Hamilton has gone. It had a dominating presence on St John's Road, where its rich foliage provided shelter from the sun and the rain.

I've no idea how old the tree was, but it had seen a good few decades and survived many storms before it was finally toppled by the two hurricanes that scored bull's eye hits on Bermuda last October.

The first, Fay, did the most damage, although the arrival six days later of the more powerful Hurricane Gonzalo worsened the situation for the grand tree.

Surprisingly, despite being all but uprooted, it continued to grow even at its post-storms acute angle. The red letter box that once sheltered beneath the mighty tree's boughs was displaced by the trauma of the hurricanes and in the interest of safety was removed soon afterwards. Dealing with the tree was a far bigger task, and for seven months it appeared the tree might remain as a living reminder of the force of nature wrought by Fay and Gonzalo. However, as I rode past on a recent journey home I noticed the corner plot had been cleared of all signs of the tree. The land looked naked and exposed without its once-towering sentinel.

Although I've never been a pedestrian strolling along the pavement beneath its shade-giving branches, the tree felt like an old friend on account of seeing it on a daily basis for almost 10 years while riding my scooter between home and work. And on a number of occasions I've run beneath the fringes of its shade during road races that skirted this distinctive corner.

What will become of the corner plot remains to be seen. But it would be fitting if another tree is given the chance to grow there and become an equally magnificent landmark.