It contained a copy of the poem written by George Cashmore, referencing me and my column.

To say I was humbled, delighted and flattered are all understatements. It was so very much more than that.

It stirred in me a real sense of belonging. It brought tears to my eyes. So many more emotions and stirrings were evoked, it's difficult to put them into words. But me, being me, I have to try.

"Thank you Mr Cashmore." Yes sir, I remember you very well. I have followed with great interest you contributions to our wonderful town you so affectionately call "Wuff."

You, of course, like others, are the brush strokes of colour on Kenilworth's landscape. You add the depth, the light and shade to the picture that completes Kenilworth. You sir, are a fully paid-up member of The Kenilworth Appreciation Society.

I hear so many grumblings about our town, but for some of us, the feeling about Kenilworth goes so much deeper than the bricks and mortar of the place. Deeper than the changes to the landscape, as new homes and shops are built, and the town grows physically, in order to accommodate the growing population. Yet who can blame those that migrate to the relative tranquillity of Kenilworth, and are proud to call Kenilworth home?

I can never walk the streets of Kenilworth and not 'feel' the atmosphere of the place. I believe this is something in those of us that grew up in Kenilworth, which transcends so much more than the visual elements of the town, aesthetically pleasing though they are.

I cannot walk the familiar streets of my hometown, and not find myself sensing the footprints made by those who walked them many years before me, when they were merely dirt tracks.

I have experienced moments when the sound of the traffic has dulled, and I mentally 'hear' trundling wagons and heavy booted feet. The bird songs, the lowing of the cattle and bleating of the sheep in the fields not so very far away.

I can't walk past the De Montford Hotel, or in fact Abbey End shops, without seeing the wilderness left by the bombs of WW2, haphazardly dropped during the blitz of Coventry. Or remember the times as a child, I ventured, against the wishes of my parents who believed it to be dangerous, to explore the devastated sight. The feelings of melancholy as a child, when discovering a perfect rhododendron in full bloom amongst the tangle of weeds, and realising even then, that it was once a part of a lovingly tended garden, but now a victim of such violence, yet defiantly it bloomed.

It has always seemed such a travesty to me that the area wasn't more sympathetically reclaimed. The De Montfort Hotel is almost an insult to Kenilworth and its history.