MM Clare. Very old. Would look after the boarders at night before matron was installed. She would hang all her necessities on a cord round her waist underneath the top layer of her habit. These included nail clippers, scissors, and an exercise book full of sweet jokes that she had written down to entertain us […]Read Post ›
Not a holiday really. Just a record. Vinyl. Very old. We put it on just now and the memories flooded back. Sitting at home in the purple and yellow living room in Egerton Court putting on record after record and dancing and singing wildly whenever I was on my own. With the limited choice of […]Read Post ›
Copenhagen The story of Hans Christian Andersen as told by class 4a in Marlborough School, 1964. “Oh wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen,” they sang – we sang – in a very animated approximation of Danny Kaye in the film of the time. Our last year of school – we seemed to be in constant rehearsal, and everyone […]Read Post ›
Carlos, Sylvie, Laurita, Luis Laurita, Sylvie, Carlos and me For CS SS LI I am not sporty. Never have been, never will be. Everyone knows that I move slowly, reluctantly, doing my bit for the planet by conserving energy whenever I can. Thus I […]Read Post ›
My father died on the 23rd November This is what I said at his funeral. It gives a tiny flavour of what he was like…. 96 years old and he was still my Tatus. My first memories of him are when he was in his late thirties and I was about three or four. […]Read Post ›
I found a diary entry today which I had written when I went to South Korea two years ago, I had been once before when Kasia first went to teach English there and although we had done a lot of very interesting sightseeing I wasn’t really planning to go again. But she intrigued me […]Read Post ›
For CC Do I exist? How do I know I exist? Does it matter whether I exist? What is existence? To be or not to be, that is the question. Except it’s been asked before. And I expect it will be again. There is no answer. But I‘ve been given a word – ontology – […]Read Post ›
For IR There is no more powerful creature than a baby. Which adult has ever managed to say with absolute conviction, “I have changed people’s lives for the better”? Yet every baby does this in some sort of way. A few days ago I was at work, at school, unable to contain my excitement about […]Read Post ›
for AG September 1964: the first Wednesday of the school term. I was just about getting used to the dreariness of life in St Augustine’s. I hadn’t been there a week when I realised that every day was going to be the same after all the day girls had gone home. Tea (more on that […]Read Post ›
For KK How I wish there had been such a – or any – dating site when I was young. Telephones were securely tied to land lines – and how I used to pray that someone would ring my number – Knightsbridge 2009 – and whisk me off to a sublime evening of dinner and […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 