Following the removal of the Review to Watford, it is evidence of a further hollowing out of St Albans – all of a piece with the downgrading of our hospital, the transfer of the University of Hertfordshire Law Faculty to Hatfield, and the planned removal of all Oaklands teaching to the Smallford campus.

We still have the Abbey and the courts of course.  But we seem rapidly to be losing those signatures of a city which help make manifest our claim to be more than just a commuter dormitory.

When I first came to St Albans, the Herts Ad (which had been founded in the city centre in 1855) had moved to Fleetville, a short walk away – albeit slightly struggling against the brashly confident freesheet Review, which burned the midnight oil up on Mount Pleasant.  A third serious local paper The Observer opened an office in Adelaide Street, specialising in brilliant photo journalism.

But then add to the mix some free shopping “papers” and more sadly became less, until the war of attrition just left the Herts Ad and Review slugging it out.

They will of course continue to be printed (at least for the foreseeable future) though they feel more and more thin in terms of content.  I expect their on-line presence will become increasingly important, although no-one has yet discovered how the commercial model works for an on-line local paper.

The journalists will remain at the end of a telephone line.  But what does it mean when local news reporters will no longer be based on the ground in our city?

The internet has driven these changes.  I am sure that local internet users will step into the breach with self-generated content, should the local papers lose touch with what is happening on the ground.  But I feel that somehow we will still be the poorer.

If you are concerned as I am by this decision by Archant to remove the Herts Advertiser from the city of its birth, do sign our petition at www.stalbanslibdems.org.uk/HertsAd

She used to be a Liberal councillor in St Albans. She came on to the council at the same time as I did so we were both “newbies” and would look to each other when we were unsure of some protocol. Her misfortune when it came to roll call votes was to have a surname beginning with “A” – the councillors are always called upon in alphabetical order – while I could lurk in the happy obscurity of the “Ws”.

Eve was a Liberal because she whole-heartedly supported the way that we campaign in the community. She became chairman of the town twinning sub-committee but really she was a Fleetville nationalist, standing up for Ashley ward. She never stopped doing things in the community, whether it was the Woodville Women’s Group, whom I had the pleasure of addressing earlier this year, or the Day Centre for elderly people at the Hatfield Road Methodist Church.One of the side benefits of attending funerals is that it often takes you into churches with which you are not familiar. The Hatfield Road Methodist Church clearly has a tremendous outreach into the community. As well as the Day Care Centre for elderly people, there is also a hugely popular Mother and Toddler Group.

Although it was not operating at the time of the funeral, the hall where it was held positively hummed with latent energy – serried rows of pedal cars, masses of toys. On the back wall there is a world map bordered by national flags connected by thread to the relevant country of origin and the number of families from that country. Even pooling the Scottish and Welsh nationalists with the English, I still counted 31 different nation states and I was assured the list was incomplete.

A great example of the cosmopolitan strengths of our city and district.

Many of the leading figures in a Methodist congregation have the title of Steward. The minister at the Hatfield Road Church, who took Eve’s beautiful service, is Roger Steward. For a moment when I glanced at the standard noticeboard of key members of the congregation, I thought he had press-ganged the whole Steward family into running the show…