Can I survive six months without my books?
My story begins with a very small puddle on the kitchen floor. As it was nowhere near the sink, I…
A game of hide-and-seek with the Queen
One of the best things about growing older is being far less easily embarrassed. You have dealt with so many…
Learning is a lifelong joy
‘I love learning about things’ (Amelia, aged nine). Not all children do, but many who have not experienced the pleasure…
Memories of a lonely, beautiful Christmas
My parents gave up on Christmas altogether once I left home for university. They had never been people for celebrations…
The strange, beautiful Christmas I spent alone
My parents gave up on Christmas altogether once I left home for university. They had never been people for celebrations…
The medicinal powers of a good book
‘And they lived happily ever after. The end.’ ‘Again.’ My poor father, bidden to read the story of the moment…
RIP Fay Weldon, a force of nature
Novelists can often be disappointingly unremarkable as people but occasionally one, like Fay Weldon, is a force of nature. She…
Lying in hospital
Why do patients need to know they’re dying?
Cries and whispers
Place and story are little remembered now. The rectory in Essex was severely damaged by fire in 1939. But any…
Best medicine
Home remedies are good for us — and the NHS
Novelist’s Notebook
A dispiriting week. Three months ago, skips arrived, into which were cast the detritus of a decade. Charity shops were…
The Wolseley
I was sitting alone at a small table in the Wolseley, Piccadilly, waiting for my supper and feeling a sense…
Diary
A princess of Hanover wrote in her diary: ‘My 30th birthday. There must be some mistake.’ Substitute 30th for 80th…
The long haul
My post-viral battle
Ghosts of Christmas past
Seances, trikes and the miracle of tinfoil
Diary
I first visited Orford in 1970, at peak Cold War when this stretch of the East Anglian coast was one…
Things go flying
There are fashions in the paranormal as in everything else. Since the famous Enfield hauntings of the late 1970s, poltergeists…
Lessons from the dying
A nurse friend recently finished six weeks in a Covid intensive care unit where she witnessed many deaths and always…
The joy of the drive-by birthday party
It is a relief to parents that young children are allowed out a bit now as the length of the…
The healing power of kindness
Nobody earns the right to respect just by having lived into old age, whenever that begins — it has happened…
The dream is over
It started when, the day after the announcement of some lockdown easing, I drove five miles along the coast road.…
