To Our Readers

The people who work here spend our days and more than a few of our nights trying to capture life in the pages of TIME. So it was a neat reversal last week to watch the pages of TIME come to life. At the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, the magazine threw a party to honor our 2003 European Heroes (TIME Europe, April 28), 36 amazing people — some famous, most not — who provoke, inspire and generally make the world a better place. Not all of our heroes could make the event; British football star and freelance style icon David Beckham had to meet with Nelson Mandela in South Africa instead. But it was quite a night. Liam Gallagher of Oasis came by to pick up an award on behalf of the Who's Roger Daltrey, who has helped build eight hospital wards for the U.K.'s Teenage Cancer Trust. (Daltrey made a gracious speech by video from the U.S.) Bono, the Irish rocker who has become a renowned advocate for Africa and debt relief, matched wits with one and all, and so did the German actress Iris Berben, who has spoken out so forcefully against anti-Semitism, and the Swedish pop stars Hanna and Magdalena Graaf, who these days devote themselves to helping street children in India.

What awed us most about the night wasn't meeting famous heroes. It was hearing from the unsung heroes about the impact being recognized in TIME has had on their work. Polish homeless advocates Barbara and Tomasz Sadowski told us that TIME's coverage is helping them in their fight to pass a new law designed to create job opportunities for the unemployed and homeless. Yiannis Boutaris, who was Greece's most famous vintner before he devoted himself to animal rights, told the crowd that after being singled out by TIME, "every door in Greece is now open to me." Icelander Asbjörn Björgvinsson, who quit his job as an engineer six years ago to spend his life fighting for the conservation and protection of whales, had a similar story. With Iceland now considering whether to resume whaling, "this award came at a crucial time," says Björgvinsson, who has been flooded with interview requests since the issue came out. The Graaf sisters said that after the Heroes issue appeared, several corporations contacted them and offered to help sponsor their children's home in Nagpur and new ones they're planning to build. Even Bono, who has many shelves full of honors and prizes, spoke about the power of being singled out by the magazine. "TIME magazine is the village pump," he told the crowd. "It's where people go to find out what's going on in the world."

All of which made us feel a little proud and enormously humble. After all, these people were the ones doing the great work; we'd only written about them. And since heroes, by definition, are in the business of shaking things up, more than a few of ours challenged us. Leonard Van Baelen, a Belgian who pioneered the fair-trade coffee movement in Congo, and South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat urged TIME to keep reporting on Africa and monitor access to antiretroviral medications for AIDS sufferers. We will; when the pages of your magazine start talking to you, you tend to listen.

The most fun part of the night was watching heroes meet heroes. Irish antiwar activist Caoimhe Butterly didn't spend much time with British war hero Captain James Moulton, but everyone else mixed it up nicely. Nebahat Akkoc, a Kurdish women's-rights advocate in Turkey, was eager to meet Irishwoman Christina Noble, who works with children in Vietnam and Mongolia. It turns out Noble is expanding her work into Akkoc's region, and will be bunking with her when she visits. Noble is also a big fan of Bono, and she beamed at having her picture taken with him. "Thanks for the kiss," she said. "It made my night." Thanks for the heroes. They made ours.

Eric Pooley, Editor