As we enter another brave new year, I reflect that I have been writing news and thoughts in a monthly column in this magazine for over 12 years. Every one of these columns is stored on the Knebworth House website – my first is dated December 2005. Today, in 2018, as well as sending news and thoughts monthly to the Parish News, I now also send it regularly, sometimes daily, to the whole world (potentially), via Twitter.
In December 2005 the word ‘Twitter’ meant no more than the sound of birds. ‘Twitter’ the phone/computer app was created four months after this column, in March 2006, and launched in July 2006. Today it is used by over 330 million people, and is famously (or infamously) the preferred method of communication of the President of the United States. You may prefer not to know what the President of the United States was thinking last night, but it is extraordinary that you can! Hearing from me once a month, you may also feel is quite enough. But there will be people and news that you are interested in on a more regular basis, and if you have a mobile phone (or access to the internet), in 2018, you can be kept up-to-date instantly, at no cost.
I don’t believe, in our generation, that Twitter is a replacement for the magazine you have in your hand, but I do encourage you if you have access to a mobile phone to ‘follow’ parish news that interests you from the Twitter accounts of local people and local organisations. If you haven’t already, download the Twitter app, create an account for yourself (it’s free), type “Knebworth” or “Hertfordshire” into search, and ‘follow’ (it’s free) those people and organisations whose updates might be of interest. Our local newspapers, radio stations and politicians won’t be telling you what they had for breakfast – they will be giving you, in short 280-character comments, up-to-date news and thoughts about our community, its daily life, issues and opportunities. District Councillor Steve Hemingway’s Twitter feed @SteveKnebworth is a good example. @HenryCobboldKH is a less good example – warning, I may reference my breakfast – but if, over the years, you’ve found one or two of these columns worth reading, you may also find the occasional tweet from me of interest.
Happy Brave New Year!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH