The BBC has been one of the rocks on which my life has been built. Dick Barton, Take it from Here, The Goon Show, Z Cars, Match of the Day, Pride and Prejudice are all notable landmarks, defining a fine pedigree.

Now they are about to let me down. Teletext is to end! This house is filled with anger and if there is no reprieve rage will be replaced by grief.

Mrs Light and I follow cricket, football, racing and of course like being up to date with the news. Teletext is therefore used frequently. A few clicks and all we need to know is set before us and joy of joys we can keep in close touch with the TV programme we are watching. The service provided is first class and valued by many of our friends and acquaintances.

Shortly I am to move into my ninth decade and am reconciled to being slower and ultimately sofa bound, Teletext would have been a trusty companion.

I am sure the BBC will say there are alternatives but they will probably be for those who have totally embraced the digital age. This does not include me and I suspect many of you reading this column. Letters of protest have already been posted and many of you wish to do the same.

This move of the BBC is yet another example of a widespread move to drive us all into an online culture. It may suit some but I am certain there are many who enjoy the personal contact when shopping, who still value the prospect of writing and receiving letters. The keyboard dominated life is not for them.

In a circulation area such as ours personal contact remains a delight and long may it remain so. Teletext of course is not personal contact but its removal is symbolic of the universal move to move online. If in writing this I am deemed to be “Luddite Light” so be it. It is a title I shall wear with pride.

Article Two

Everyone will soon be thinking about Christmas our shops, garden centres and advertisements in this paper will leave us no option. It must be admitted that I quite like it, so no complaints.

We moved to Gloucestershire in December 2005, coming to live in a house in the centre of Cirencester. The Close we live in certainly deserves the title respectable.

Mrs Light was new to the ways of a Cotswold Christmas so I warned her we would be visited by various carol singers. They would be of varying quality, but they would be many. This emotive account of carol singing in “Cider with Rosie” was required reading.

We waited, and waited, we have waited for thirteen years and not a Christmas note have we heard.

I am disappointed, but Mrs Light is scornful. Living on the edge of Hempstead Heath she was seasonally serenaded by many tuneful young people, often with musical accompaniment. Some knocked on the door, others such as the church choir sang from the street corner. Highlight was the Rotary Christmas float.

A benign Father Christmas was pulled up Highgate Hill and back, surrounded and supported by a band of Rotarian brothers huffing and puffing all fulfilling their Christmas duty.

They would have been sent on their way by a festive high tea (Mrs Light is good at such things). All our singing visitors and our own personal expeditions added to the Christmas spirit. We were weary but happy. I am sure there are carol singers in Cirencester, but they have not been heard here. Young and old, groups or individuals get practicing.

There are many Christmas traditions that need to be maintained or the season will simply wallow in commercialism. The Subscription Rooms in Stroud and the Everyman Theatre in ~Cheltenham host Johnny Coppin and of course the Pantomime with our hero of humour Tweedy the clown. These are the rocks on which our Cotswold Christmas is built. Both occasions are in the true spirit of the season. I must head for the respective box offices.