When Mary and I started this little magazine enterprise in January 2012 there were those who scoffed, turned away, and looked upon us as if we were slightly deranged.
I recall someone asking, “What do you want to do that for?” pointing out that our area was already well served with such publications, or adding, “…at your age!”
Anyway, as is my nature, and hot out of Loughborough University as a mature student with my master’s degree in creative writing, off we bounded into the unknown and got our first magazine out into the Soar Valley by my 59th birthday on April 10th 2012.
The edition you hold in your hand is the 157th edition, with twice as many pages and advertisers, and with a distribution nearly 3 times what it was in those early days.
The other day this poem popped up on my Facebook page and got me pondering about life:
It Couldn’t Be Done
by Edgar Albert Guest
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it”;
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
Last week I attended an open day at the printers we use for all our leaflets and sundry print work. That company was founded about twenty years ago by 2 students at university from their bedsit printing flyers for their students’ union announcing the bands that were to play at the weekends and designing and printing business cards for their class mates who were up and coming entrepreneurs. Those two students, now in their forties today run the largest and most successful printing business in the UK and one of the top ten in Europe with over £55 million turnover per annum, handling 25,000 print jobs every week, and most of those jobs delivered the day following the order!
You can bet your life there were those who scoffed, and those aplenty who prophesied failure, as they beavered away in their little student rooms turning out their print orders.
So, choose what you want, and be not put off by the opinion of others. Go for it with all you have, saving enough for all you need; trust me, It can be done…
Steve
