Well, there we are, as Emily Thornberry would say. 2017 is all but wrapped up and I’m gearing up for what will, terrifyingly, be my third year editing your newspaper.

James Morris has done a sterling job of rounding up the big stories of the last 12 months in today’s Gazette. But looking back at my own year, what sticks out are isolated moments rather than narratives or campaigns.

I remember waking at 5am to the news a vehicle had been driven into worshippers in Seven Sisters Road late the previous night, and trying to separate my professional reaction from my personal one.

I remember the pride and delight I felt at helping judge the civic awards, and the feeling of ridiculous unworthiness at getting up on stage to give them out months later.

I remember picking up the phone to Nashon Esbrand’s tearful friends hours after his death, and how strange it felt to have to change hats moments later and film a reporter pouring drain cleaner onto a steak.

I remember jostling for space in the Sobell Leisure Centre at three in the morning watching Jeremy Corbyn, my MP, giving a speech many had thought he would never give – and how it felt for 15 minutes to believe that, just maybe, he would be walking into Downing Street in the morning.

I remember working into the night with the brilliant Emma Youle hours before our child abuse investigation was due on the presses.

And while I’m apprehensive about what we’ll end up covering and uncovering in 2018, I know there’ll be plenty to be proud of as a community and as a newspaper.

I hope we can make you proud, too: of each other, Islington, perhaps even us.

This is a wildly unstable industry, but I’m certain the Gazette still has a place in it, and in this great borough.