IoS letters, emails and online postings (20 March 2016)

My heart sank when the news was confirmed last month that the paper I love was closing. I started reading The Independent on Sunday because, to be honest, I couldn’t deal with the bulk of The Observer.

Your brisk editing over the past three years (around the time I started reading) has validated that decision and I find myself reading it cover to cover all week long. My sports and fashion knowledge is about to nosedive.

I was born only a month after The IoS. My generation tend to have their news filtered by friends and fancy algorithms. Our social networks represent my world, not society or our world. There is no letters page. Where will I read those intergenerational voices now?

I remember buying The IoS following the Paris terror attacks in November, and your simple tricolour cover. It represented everything I love about the paper. A dedication to the news (so beautifully stated after Alan Henning’s death), a voice for considered opinions, and a space to celebrate and champion justice, as seen in the Rainbow List.

Thank you for informing me on the fun and the serious. I’m already excited to celebrate with you one last time this Sunday. With the very best wishes to you, your team and all contributors for the future.

Joey Knock

London, via email

We are ex-pat Americans. The Independent and The Independent on Sunday are, for me, two of the very best things about the UK.

Thank you for your awareness and care of so many vulnerable groups, especially the LGBTQ community. You are a unique and marvellous paper/resource and all I can say is thank god I’ll be able to continue to read you online.

Pamela Bayes and Carl Wiltse

Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway

For the past 20-plus years my Sunday evenings have been coffee, Courvoisier and The Independent on Sunday spread out over the sofa. On-line viewing does not and cannot work the same, and as for the other Sunday options, they are really not worth bothering with. Whether it’s politics, comment, or sport, you have consistently employed the best, most insightful and considered journalists. Please don’t go!

Barry Milligan

London N6

Does it have to end like this? You’ve changed over the years, when you used to be independent and carefree. I can’t accept that you now have some lefty views and don’t care for the Tories that much.

You are into all that “green stuff” and some of your family think that the countryside is full of toffs. But surely there is something worth saving? We might have to compromise, but if we don’t then after Sunday we will be left with, well, nothing!

How will I survive without your image facing me at the newsagent? Without your words to inform, enlighten and entertain me? You say you want a long distance, “virtual” relationship – but are you sure that will be the same? It isn’t too late to keep those printing presses rolling for a bit more time? I can change...

Philip H

via email

We have read The IoS from the start and it has become part of our weekend. We read it over breakfast and if we cannot finish it then, we have it on the table for the rest of the week.

We have become used to the high-calibre reporters to give us a balanced view of world affairs as well as domestic news. As a result of the reviews, I have bought books and discs.

No doubt I will dip into The IoS online, but it will not be the same.

Roger and Mary Stephens

via email

Farewell then to the inky words of John Rentoul, Rupert Cornwell, DJ Taylor, Tim Mickleburgh and Keith Flett. I shall have to take up gardening to get my hands dirty on a Sunday morning.

Brian Lomas

Manchester

I have been cutting out articles for over two decades and displaying them in my studio for years as part of my postmodern art. It seems I will have to purchase a colour printer to continue my art!

Kartar Uppal

Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands

Your demise segues with mine at my part-time job (government funding cuts – Pension Wise) which I felt lucky to get after redundancy from a senior post in higher education. So fare thee well and good luck. As a 57-year-old female I don’t think I shall get meaningful employment again. Thanks for the good times.

Susan James

via email

Most of all I shall miss Invisible Ink. In more than 300 columns Christopher Fowler has opened a window on to the wealth of literary talent that lies outside the familiar mainstream. Dare one hope that Christopher will find a continuing channel?

Michael Davison

Kingston upon Thames, Surrey

Your report and pictures on Stuart Pearce’s appearance for Longford FC (13 March) embodied the best of The Independent on Sunday’s journalism for me. I’m going to miss it. Good luck in your all-online future.

Chris Moorhouse

Southampton

So long, and thanks for all the Fisk.

Stephen Roberts

St Peter Port, Guernsey

It is with great sadness that I say farewell to The IoS, especially the Details competition. I have enjoyed and entered the competition from the start. Ten times my name has come out of the hat, and it has given me enormous pleasure to win, though the pleasure of being right is a close runner-up. Alas, I shall have to buy my own prosecco now.

Sally Wagstaff

Wolverley, Worcestershire

Having been a reader since the start, two things stand out. First, the fresh and groundbreaking sport supplements in the 1990s for world cups and Wimbledon, etc. These had a quality of design and gravitas balanced with wit which made them armchair stand-bys throughout a tournament (I still cherish the player anagrams for one Wimbledon which made Giant Irishman from Martina Hingis).

Second, the music reviews of Simon Price who introduced me to some very good stuff. I think particularly of Lucky Soul. Without Simon’s championing I would never have had the pleasure of “One Kiss Don’t Make a Summer”, a truly goosebump-inducingly swoonsome pop record that I know I’ll still love decades from now, if I get that far.

Paul McNicol

via email

A particular plea is to retain the specificity of the letters page. Websites have comments under articles but that is not the same as readers’ views chosen for wider interest. In the print version, the letters page will be stumbled across. On the website it is has to be sought out, and I suspect not so many trouble to do that.

Keith Flett

London N17

What about those of us who live in rural areas without decent broadband? We have been readers of both Independent papers since they were first published, and have appreciated the quality and balanced reporting, particularly with regard to the Middle East. Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn are exceptional. It’s the end of the road for us. I have no idea where we will go next.

Elizabeth Spencer

via email

I shall miss your print edition each Sunday, a title I’ve purchased at different locations over the years, including in Hastings the Sunday after 9\11 and being annoyed that there were only three pages of non Twin Towers news despite the same level of lifestyle coverage.

I recall getting my name in your old Captain Moonlight column, and getting a £50 voucher from Thomas Pink as a result. There was also the Question & Answer feature on the sports pages, I still have on my bookshelves the title this produced. I wish you well online for those more technically minded than myself.

Tim Mickleburgh

Grimsby, Lincolnshire

Editor's note

Thank you to the many readers who took the time to write in with memories of The Independent on Sunday and their thoughts about the change from print to digital for The Indepedent titles.

I’d like to point out that The Independent Daily Edition is available as an app that is iPad, Android and Kindle-friendly from independentsubscriptions.co.uk

If you have any queries, please email support@independent.co.uk