YOUR favourite weekly read today celebrates a significant milestone – 1,500 issues, not out!

Formerly the West End Extra, it was the brainchild of our former editor Eric Gordon who saw how the West End was crying out for its own local paper, free to read, and stubbornly independent.

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow. And in 1994 the first stand-alone Extras launched in dispensers across Covent Garden, Soho, Marylebone and Mayfair.

Eric would have raised a glass of some strong-smelling spirit to toast this week’s milestone with a wink and a smile at its continued success.

The Extra’s competitors have, over the past decade, either folded or been swallowed-up by news websites chasing hits across the entire capital.

The Camden New Journal group ownership model is independent publishing in the truest form. There is no cost to the reader, no shareholders to satisfy.

People living outside the West End often talk about it as a place dominated by clubs, pubs and shows, where visitors have a free pass and anything goes.

But few actually think about the people who make up the strong communities of Soho, Covent Garden, Marylebone and Mayfair.

How many times have you heard someone express the sentiment that “if you will live in the West End you can put up with more than most”?

The Extra has always tried to be a voice of the people, from tenants living in unfit homes to shopkeepers struggling to get by.

Our reporters have covered major national events, like the 1999 Admiral Duncan Soho pub and the 7/7 bombings, to campaigns to save the NHS and covering a council still haunted by the ghost of Shirley Porter.

Early Extra issues were focused on the aftermath of the Porter gerrymandering scandal while also holding the council to account for its “filthy streets” and the introduction of money-grabbing parking permit plans.

Memorable stories over the years include a royal family obsessive whose skull and bones were unearthed on an island in St James’s Park.

There was Sante Zanello, the elderly Italian chef, who dug his heels in and lived for months on his own in a care home in Marylebone in defiance of a council order to shut it down.

We revealed astonishing links between a sponsor of Pimlico Academy and the cemeteries that were sold off by the city council under Porter.

The world’s media were left chasing our tail after an eye-popping Lord Lucan scoop.

And who could forget the “Naked Priest” saga at St Anne’s Church, Soho?

The Harrington diary page has been named after our very much missed. former literary editor Illtyd Harrington, Ken Livingstone’s old deputy on the Greater London Council.

We still have two pages each week devoted to readers’ letters. And there’s the best of what’s on at some of the country’s most famous cinemas and theatres.

All this, lovingly put together by an experienced team of subs.

Thank you to the readers, the advertisers and everyone who supports us.

And here’s to issue number 2,000.