Unmasked February 13, 2026 - “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth." Oscar Wilde In 1981, my final year at university, I took a… Read More
American Diner January 30, 2026 - I grew up on a diet of 1950s America. Following my father’s return from five years teaching in the US, he remained forever homesick for his adopted country. He would gladly have lived out his days in America where life, he said, was both more gracious and more fun than it was in England. Occasionally,… Read More
Blow, Gabriel, Blow January 14, 2026 - The playwright Peter Shaffer once made the observation that tragedy is not a conflict between right and wrong, but a conflict between two different kinds of right. The world is a noisy place and opinions about what’s right and who’s wrong are growing louder. In these early days of 2026, listening thoughtfully and integrating intentionally… Read More
In the Garden of Good and Evil January 5, 2026 - In May 2001 I attended a conference on trans-generational trauma, truth and reconciliation. People travelled to Germany from all over the world: the United States, China, Argentina, Serbia, Albania, Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. The fact that the event took place in the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg was not a coincidence. In March 1945 the Royal… Read More
Sleeping Beauties November 20, 2025 - It was my mother who introduced me to the thrill of abandoned buildings. Her preference was for large houses with glamorous histories, like Encombe, for example, which was a mile from where we lived in Folkestone. Following several landslides in the 1950s, the house became uninhabitable. Mum would instruct dad to detour into the hills… Read More
Mint Spies November 13, 2025 - It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s mince pie season ... It took me a while to convert my Swiss-raised daughters to the thick sweet gloop of candied fruit in a pastry case, but, by the time they were in their early teens, we were a dedicated trio of enthusiasts. I once carried… Read More
Aristocrats and Airmen in the Alps November 6, 2025 - The Bernese village of Adelboden sits on a terrace at the end of a long valley. It is surrounded on three sides by mountains and overlooks a deep gorge. For more than 600 years the only way in and out of the village was over the mountains. Life was hard, people were poor and by… Read More
School for Life October 15, 2025 - Last night I watched a documentary about the life of Canadian actor, John Candy*. All I really knew about Candy was that he was a large man, who died at the age of forty-three. However, Trains, Planes and Automobiles is one of my favourite films so I decided to give it a go. Candy was… Read More
And They Lived Ever After October 1, 2025 - Einstein is credited as saying “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” In 1965 my father gave me a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Unusually, there is no dedication. Instead, in wobbly handwriting are the words “Sunday… Read More
Just a Barefoot Farm Boy September 19, 2025 - In 1982 I graduated from the University of Reading and began a six month internship with Herman Hall, an educational psychologist in New York. Herman worked in private schools in the Carnegie Hill district of Manhattan. Having subsequently spent several years in inner-city schools in London, it struck me that, whether financially privileged or socially… Read More