We are delighted to introduce you to STAN in our new Cutting Edge series.

You may have heard about Stan on our Readers' Letters page.   His syle of writing attracted our attention and we saw the potential with a regular column.

If the Daily Mail can have feature writers - then why not us?

Here, as as start, Stan tells you something about himself:-

Just STaN

Who is Stan? Maybe I'm the best person to answer that.

In the cyber world not everything is always as it seems. Those of you who follow Readers Letters on the Neath Ferret will have seen quite a few letters from Stan in recent months. Often the focus of the letters has been pointed at the expense claims of MPs, including Neath MP, Peter Hain.

But we know Stan is male, and we know there is a Mrs Stan too. They've been together a long time, at least for Christmas dinners, and he's not keen on sprouts. We know Stan isn't very young because of his reference to being "an old fool" but how old is he?  The Stans have a son. We know Stan drinks port - does that help us age him? Stan doesn't use Facebook or Twitter - any clues there? And he sometimes reads the Daily Mail and the Telegraph - apparently.

Whatever, Stan wants to thank the following:

Peter Hain MP, for making Stan again take an interest in the world at large and giving him something to be passionate about.

The Editor and supporting Team at the Neath Ferret who have published letters from Stan and have been kind enough to offer a "slot" to indulge himself further.

All those who read the Ferret, especially anyone who contributes to Readers Letters. Because without you there is no Ferret.

Stan wants to call the Ferret slot "Just STaN".

His contributions will hopefully be enjoyed by some, but if that is all it will be a failure. He wants it to make people think a little bit about the subject matter, maybe annoy some people too. He wants them to be stirred enough to post something themselves and get some good debate and points of view being aired. That's one of the great things about living in a free country (or relatively free)  - we should be able to hold different views and within the law we should be able to challenge the system which we are part of.

As it turns out STaN is an acronym for:

 Satire, Talk and News.

In that case, who is Stan? Well - it's me! But who really cares anyway - it's what Stan writes that counts!!

If you've bothered to read this far, thank you. And I hope that "Just STaN" entertains you.

Regards
Stan

Ed Note ..... Read Stan's first column this weekend.