Letter from America

Alister Cook pre-dates the modern blog. His "Letter from America" was a favourite of mine on "steam" radio. His description of everyday America and the people who made up that important country was a perfect specimen of the understated but accurate description of life around him seen through the eyes of a middle class Englishman living and plying his journalistic trade across the States. Sitting in our living room in England his quiet distinctive voice wove a verbal picture of a country so different from our own but which through language we felt an affinity for.
The personalities were front page news, their politicians affected our foreign policy their culture became ours and Alister Cook tried to make sense of it all, seen from the English perspective. From the American Constitution to the racial conflict in the 60s/70s. His description of the wonder of the Fall in Vermont, this attempt to explain the obsession Americans have for Baseball the dignity of Joe Louis. The painful learning process they were forced into about their lack of invincibility, learnt the hard way through the Vietnam War. His delivery was in part whimsical, projected in a measured tone, eliciting an "old world" turn of phrase, comforting in the humanity it touched as he described the texture of a complex society.  Like our enjoyment of big band swing music, the crooning lyrics of singers who's training and diction meant we could actually understand what they were singing about, this assumption that we would stop and listen to gain understanding. Foreign in the hectic "gad fly" life so many people these days call life !!