Curtain falls on my time in the Mail.

I NEVER seem to time things right.

Today, I was going to look at the start of Hall Green Little Theatre's 60th anniversary season. I was going to touch on What Colour is Christmas?, a new musical set at the East Pole in Rainbowland.

But after 25 years of chasing amateur thespians across their stages, I've run out of time. A chunk of my life which once found me having a week of six theatre evenings and one Saturday matine, has run out of steam.

Suddenly, nobody is going to email me and remind me that my weekly ponderings should have percolated to Fort Dunlop by now, so where are they? My brain cell will no longer need to brace itself and get into gear to propel the latest tidings into cyberspace.

Never again will a kindly front-of-house team hold the curtain because I've got stuck in traffic somewhere. (It happened only once and I arrived in a sort of shamefaced shuffle - as I did several years later, when I entered the foyer and realised I was wearing my slippers). And if I ever again see a backstage man laid low on being thumped on the back of the neck by the descent of the safety curtain, I won't have anybody to tell.

That will feel a little odd. On the other hand, life tends to go on - which is why I am grateful to Roger Clarke, friend and colleague at the Post & Mail for many years, for having the bright idea of opening another door. Together, we shall step bravely into the unknown by launching a theatre website called www.behindthearras.com. It will bring the flavour of theatre, both amateur and professional, with news, reviews, interviews and listings, plus a clutch of classified advertisements for people wanting to sell or obtain sundry theatrical necessities.

What it won't have, as far as I am concerned, is the crackle of newsprint and the facility of offering a comfortable read in an armchair. My tooth is too lonely and too long for me to have to seek the company of a computer for reading as well as for writing..

But it will be fun to create and fun to write - and it will give me an excuse to continue meeting the friends whose enthusiasms and skills are what drive theatre, both for themselves and their audiences, and perhaps to persuade them that Roger and I could possibly still be sort of useful to somebody.

JOHN SLIM