Dear Millers — as expected, lots of you really liked last night’s piece about the Greater Manchester servicemen and their memories of fighting in Afghanistan. If you missed that one, you can read it here.

Today we have something very different — a feature about a famous local writer and editor in the early twentieth century who met Hardy, corresponded with Tolstoy and edited what sounds like a great forerunner of The Mill: Teddy Ashton’s Northern Weekly.

And just quickly: A message to the local students and journalism professors among our readers: applications to be our next trainee intern close tomorrow night. Candidates just need to email us a few ideas and a few links to their past work. We’ve had some great applications but we’re keen to make sure as many people know as possible before we sort through them. Past trainees include Dani and Mollie, and they are happy to answer questions about this one-day-per-week role — just direct message them on Twitter.