Now All Eyes Are On The Next Generation… by Tom Beasley

One of the great pleasures of writing this column is knowing that I possess the power to make some of you feel very old indeed. It was true when I wrote about graduating university a decade ago, true when I wrote about getting married two years ago, and true when I wrote about buying my first home last year. But now, get ready for a big one. I'm having a baby.

In fact, I'm having two babies. My wife is expecting twins, who will hopefully make their grand entrance at some stage in June or July – twins being unpredictable little whatsits who are prone to making an early appearance. We're both very excited and also bundles of nerves, given the fact we're coming pretty close to being outnumbered by kids right off the bat. There have certainly been anxious discussions about whether our car is big enough for a double buggy – yes, we reckon, just about.

But as with so many of the big life events that have happened over the past few years, this feels like a time for reflection. Looking backwards is certainly more comfortable than looking forwards, given the turbulent and – let's face it – quite scary world that our little ones will be born into.

All of this reflection has actually made me very grateful for the existence of this column, which essentially serves as a document of all of the things I've been interested in over the years. It's not just the big life events I've spoken about within these pages, but the cultural, political, and personal moments that have risen to the surface as I've faced the increasingly difficult bi-monthly question of what on earth to write about this time around. After all, I've been writing this column for 16 years, which amounts to well over 100 articles. That's enough to test even the most creative of minds, let alone mine which is mostly full of useless movie trivia and fantasy football transfers.

But the joy of that Your Call archive is that, one day, I'll be able to pass it on to the twins. I'll be able to tell them that this is a record of what their dad wanted to say during some of the most formative years of his existence – the years in which he was chasing his dream career and trying to build a life. Given the fact I've never really kept a diary, this is the next best thing – a living document of the things that have mattered to me for the last decade and a half.

More than anything, though, I want the children to grow up knowing that their voice and their opinion is important. The world of columnists and journalism isn't just for jaded old folks; it's for young people too if they have something to say. That's something I'm very grateful to Your Call for and, as I wrote in this column just a few months ago, it's something I now pass on to today's young writers through my work as the editor of Voice Magazine.

My next job is to pass as much of that opportunity as I can to my kids, once they're old enough to be able to look back at these articles and decide how they want to use their voice as it develops, and they work out what it is that they believe. Maybe one day, one of the twins will take an interest in writing and I can give them the keys to this column and see how they do with it.

But for now, it's all stockpiling nappies, buying adorable little socks, and measuring the boot of the car for the millionth time... just in case.

© 2025 Tom Beasley

Tom Beasley is a freelance film journalist, Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and podcaster now living in Coventry. He can be reached at tomjbeasley@gmail.com.