I HATE goodbyes. So I’m going to make this one a long, drawn-out, dramatically painful exercise with tears, handkerchiefs and violins. Perhaps a steam-train loading up in the background and a guard sternly hurrying us along.

What can I say? Just when I was getting my teeth stuck into things at the News and Views someone goes and offers me the job I’ve wanted since I was 14. It won’t take a detective to work out where I’m going. Just a radio tuned to Moray Firth at news time.

Before I go I’d like to thank everyone who has helped me put together the News and Views over the past four and a bit months. To all the advertisers, Andrew Green at the Chemist, George and James at Merkinch Arms, Jim from Clach Shoe Shop, PC Norman MacLeod, Sharon at La Scala, Naomi and Keith from the South Kessock Safety Karers, our delivery boys and girls (Stanley, Robbie, Mr Osbourne, Sybil, Steve, Eddie, John, Russell and my Mum) and to everyone who has let me interview them for the newsletter especially to those of you who dropped in with their own ideas for stories - THANK YOU.

Now on to the subject of the future for the News and Views. That is to say, will there be a future for the News and Views? I think it would be sad to see the newsletter disappear after I leave. Not because I think it’s the bestest newsletter in the whole world and absolutely crucial to your life. I know you will get on without it. But if it does disappear I think it would be the death of a really good opportunity.

Do you have a story to tell? Do you have an opinion you want heard? Do you just want to win the La Scala Crossword? Let Merkinch Enterprise know. If you don’t they will assume you don’t care and if you don’t care no one else will.