The great carnivals are over, and so are all those fetes.
Never again those wrong locations, times and dates.
The diary can be closed now, your Saturdays are free,
Farewell to giant cheques, no more accidents to see.
You’ll never be paid for a house fire or a Nativity again,
and soon you’ll feel nostalgic, and only wish that when
the local teams are playing or a news event occurs,
you could still announce it through your pictures and your words.
But the front page of the paper that used to print your name
is appallingly laid out now, little quality remains.
The photographs are freebies, or taken on a phone,
the words are poorly written and the lack of subbing means that the nothings make sense or fit the space he’s supposed to of fit
The sorry publication is now a steaming crock of shit.
Which makes you slightly angry, but it also makes you sad,
you remember the good times, glossing over all the bad.
You miss the fayres on village greens and the people that you met,
those wins you shared with players, days you never will forget.
The cup runs and the colleagues who gave you wrong addresses,
the hours at the court and the Prom girls’ orange dresses.
The thirty mayors you’ve covered and the MPs that passed through,
councillors love a freelance, you knew all the red and blue.
But no more diamond weddings, or protests in the street,
your three decades are done, there’s no deadline set to meet.
Exams will never be the same, no jumping in the air,
they’ve ripped down all the bunting on your final village fayre.
And will they mark your passing, will speeches ring out loud?
Will there be a ceremony, a farewell to a crowd?
You’ve never been on the staff, they’ll be no grand goodbye.
No banquet that the mayor attends, no message from on high.
Sadly there’s just silence, when a freelance slips away,
they won’t notice your departure on that poignant final day.
There’s no subs left to bang you out, or a front page in a frame.
The freelance is a lonely role in the journalistic game,
where accountants rule the pages and influence the news.
Columns filled by readers and their fascinating views.
They don’t want to pay up for professionals anymore,
but watch the circulation sink slowly through the floor.
Skimming your final copy there’s a truth that dawns on you.
The saddest part of all, is that the papers finished too.