The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves * August 2, 2022 - I confess to a peculiar and long-standing fascination with cemeteries. I find them neither creepy nor depressing. Walking around a graveyard offers me a sense of consolation. My future, at least in this respect, is guaranteed. There is no possibility of an exemption. By the close of this century, most of the 7 billion travellers… Read More
Blown Away by Folkestone July 11, 2022 - In 2009 I discovered the North Norfolk coast. It was thrilling. The landscape was wild and beautiful and, in early March, my dog and I had the beaches to ourselves. I told all my friends about my new find because, well, I was a pioneer. None of them had ever travelled that far east. I… Read More
The Banished Children of Adam and Eve July 3, 2022 - ‘Sometimes a man stands up during supper and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking, because of a church that stands somewhere in the East. And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead. And another man, who remains inside his own house, stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses, so… Read More
Back to the Garden June 17, 2022 - And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. Joni Mitchell Minturn Till is a fourth generation fruit and hop farmer. His great-grandfather, Walter Till moved to Worcestershire in 1896, renting land and buildings in order to fatten chickens for the White Star Shipping Line. Walter also raised livestock and planted hops. He… Read More
And They Lived Ever After June 12, 2022 - 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. I am currently re-visiting my own copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, given to me by my father in 1965. Unusually, there is no dedication. Instead,… Read More
Closing the Circle May 24, 2022 - I was a free man in Paris. I felt unfettered and alive. Nobody was calling me up for favors. No one's future to decide. … Read More
The Beatle of the Bullring May 6, 2022 - In 1959, my parents founded an English language school on the southeast coast of England and in 1970, The School of English Studies welcomed ‘El Cordobes’, Spain’s most celebrated bullfighter. I was eleven years old and had never heard of the man they called ‘The Beatle of the Bullring’, but I was fascinated by the… Read More
Guernica/Gernika April 8, 2022 - Gernika is the happiest town in the world. Its affairs are run by a group of peasants who meet beneath an oak tree and always make the fairest decisions. Jean-Jacques Rousseau c.1760 From the village of Mundaka, we boarded a single-track railway line which took us through tidal flats and salt marshes, past… Read More
The Kindness of Strangers March 12, 2022 - Yesterday I lost my wallet. By late morning, having conducted repeated searches of the same pockets and all the rest, I decided that it was time to call the bank. My money was safe and that was a relief, but where was my velvet purse with its white beaded stitching? – a gift from a… Read More
Standing on the shoulders of giants March 3, 2022 - If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants Sir Isaac Newton 1643 – 1727 Rikon, founded in 1926, is a leading Swiss brand of cookware. In the early 2000s, a factory worker, who had been with the company for many years, retired. His job had been to remove pans… Read More