The above photo is all the women in the family in about 1999. the end of the last century. It is one of my favourite photos taken in my mother’s flat. My mother’s little sister was 63 then – today Auntie Alice would have been 85. 85!!! I find it really hard to imagine. Here […]Read Post ›
I was walking through this park on Monday with my daughter who lives nearby and was reminded of an occasion in 1976 when I first visited the museum. I had just graduated from university and was wondering what to do with my life. I had decided on a gap year, but I had to survive […]Read Post ›
This is the book I would like to have written. ST and I have so much in common. Not everyhing of course. She is much, much cleverer than me and much more knowledgeable – and much wittier, to boot. But – we both like buses, and talking to strangers, and looking out of the window, […]Read Post ›
Or Lucky Grapes Happy new year. Or szczęśliwego nowego roku. I am sitting in the tube at the moment and opposite me are a young couple who are having a lovely time. He is teaching her how to say happy new year in Polish. She is having difficulties but is gamely practising. I am inwardly […]Read Post ›
“You look so pretty/ In the dark.”/ Oh what a witty Deflating remark! “But you look pretty/ when it’s light.”/ Oh what a pity/ He is so polite. 2/6/78 Picture by Ben
I wrote this in response to someone’s little rant on Facebook. They had all my sympathy as there’s nothing worse than going to a concert of a play or a film and being distracted by sweets and popcorn and talking and in one case in my experience a couple trying to make love next to […]Read Post ›
I’m on my way to the Tate Modern at the moment and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m on the train to Paddington and just thinking about all the exhibitions I have really wanted to see and actually made the effort to go to the gallery, yet did not manage to see them. Many years […]Read Post ›
Reading List Suitable literature for young ladies 1964 – 1971 Form III Mrs Nurse: 39 Steps; The Tempest Lower IV Miss Crowfoot: Great Expectations; Twelfth Night; Hornblower Upper IV M M Francis: The Rape of the Lock; Northanger Abbey Lower V […]Read Post ›
I used to work in a school called Ealing Green. It was closing down for many reasons, but possibly mainly because it was a school for boys and single sex schools were rapidly going out of fashion. I had been there for almost seven years – first on general supply ( the only supply teacher […]Read Post ›
