When the curtain falls . . .

Abstract

. . . Its time to get off the stage. The new Editor of the AJRH, James Dunbar, is taking over from this issue of our Journal. I am personally delighted, not just because we share some educational heritage, but because he will bring new vigour, new ideas and he is ideally skilled to take the AJRH forwards to greater and better places. Over the last few years a team, and I include the Board of Management in this, has given our Journal a new look, a new style and new content. I never saw this moment of transition as the end of change but, to quote Churchill, it is the end of the beginning. Where would I have wanted more success? – At least in encouraging our authors to use short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, write short articles and use the active voice. As educators we bear a grave responsibility for having somehow convinced our students that academic merit is measured in kilograms and that scholarship is synonymous with dense incomprehensible prose. Some papers are models of clarity. Although in others very few readers will struggle to find the often excellent but buried points that they contain. In the editorial office we do try, but some submissions are so obtuse that they are just impossible to understand. It is often good to look back on papers from many years ago. The British Medical Journal recently reprinted the paper linking smoking and disease.1 These papers are often masterpieces of precise, concise writing. Perhaps it was having to use a typewriter, or even longhand, that made their authors so disciplined. We have had some wonderful contributions to ‘Grazings’. We always needed more. If you have a story, an anecdote or a musing, it is never too late to send it along. No writing experience necessary. Some time ago in the Journal, I speculated that rural health professionals seemed to live for ever. I’m now convinced that they do because nobody sends us obituaries. It has been a good time, and the AJRH remains dear to my heart, so there is a sadness in moving on. Journals are living breathing things and they need new hands and hearts to keep them alive. So many people should be thanked. Thanks to all our authors, referees and our Board of Management. Everybody, without exception, at Blackwell our publishers, has been wonderful to work with. I can’t vanish into the wings without a special thank-you to Juliane Ward, our editorial assistant until her twins came along, who did an exceptional job in getting the Journal (and me) organised. The final curtain has now fallen. It is time to leave the stage to James.