About 35 years ago I was teaching in a boys’ school in West London, which was an experience in itself. The school was very rundown and staffed mostly by supply teachers like me, with very few resources. I was working there because it was across the road from where I lived. I had two small […]Read Post ›
On Wednesday we went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, with the intention of seeing this painting which had recently come to London with much fanfare within the Polish community. It is the first time it has been displayed in England and my photos do not do it justice in anyway. But I photographed […]Read Post ›
This semi-autobiographical short novel, from 1979,, is a fascinating expose of attitudes to life in an emerging post colonial Senegal. Written in the form of a letter from a recent widow to her friend who now lives in America, she looks back on her life as a teacher, mother of twelve, wife and widow of […]Read Post ›
Thank you KK This has been one of the most challenging books I have ever read – the subject matter is war – and normally I avoid this, because I want to relax, be entertained, and enjoy myself. This is quite hard to do when confronted with the horrors and passions and enormities of war. […]Read Post ›
This lovely picture is of my grandmother, Helena Ĺomnicka and my aunt, Alicja, taken after they were freed from Siberia and had recovered a little in Teheran before they were sent to the Lebanon in about 1944 or 5 Today is the 10th anniversary of my aunt’s death – I have written about her before […]Read Post ›
An ambition fulfilled. Today is the fourth anniversary of Sharon’s death. The last three years there was a lovely memorial mass said for her in Westminster Cathedral – her spiritual and dramatic home. Her funeral there was the biggest production she ever put on, and it was superb. I have written about it before I […]Read Post ›
This time in Chelsea Two weeks ago I started writing about my long and interesting walk in Chelsea, down the Kings Road, back to the stamping ground of my teenagerdom. I had a wonderful day, marred only for a while by the need to go to the loo. But that is the story for many […]Read Post ›
This is my grandfather as I never knew him. He was born in 1878 and died during the Second World War, a captive in Siberia. His story is a very interesting one, but one which I shall leave for another day. Today I was thinking about him as I was wrapping parcels to send […]Read Post ›
This is a story which my son discovered about some of his paternal ancestors. I have translated it from a newspaper article which I attach below. And a link to a a map. At the beginning of the nineteenth century in the centre of the present park stood a hunting lodge belonging to the Doschot […]Read Post ›
I ko A story of great joy This photograph is of a true heroine – she celebrated her 95th birthday a couple of weeks ago – I am sure this is something she certainly didn’t expect to do 75 years ago when the second world war ended. About ten years ago she gave me a […]Read Post ›
