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…
Why do patients need to know they’re dying?
Why do patients need to know they’re dying?
The truth about ‘the most haunted house in England’
Place and story are little remembered now. The rectory in Essex was severely damaged by fire in 1939. But any…
Home remedies are good for us – and the NHS
Home remedies are good for us — and the NHS
The day I found a postcard from Virginia Woolf
A dispiriting week. Three months ago, skips arrived, into which were cast the detritus of a decade. Charity shops were…
My love affair with the Wolseley
I was sitting alone at a small table in the Wolseley, Piccadilly, waiting for my supper and feeling a sense…
Can I really be turning 80?
A princess of Hanover wrote in her diary: ‘My 30th birthday. There must be some mistake.’ Substitute 30th for 80th…
My post-viral battle and what it tells us about long Covid
My post-viral battle
The wonderful ghosts of Christmas past
Seances, trikes and the miracle of tinfoil
East Anglia is the place for birds
I first visited Orford in 1970, at peak Cold War when this stretch of the East Anglian coast was one…
We all love a poltergeist story
There are fashions in the paranormal as in everything else. Since the famous Enfield hauntings of the late 1970s, poltergeists…
The dying need real conversation, not false cheeriness
A nurse friend recently finished six weeks in a Covid intensive care unit where she witnessed many deaths and always…
There’s no point in bishops – Covid has shown us so
It is a relief to parents that young children are allowed out a bit now as the length of the…
The genius of Alfred Hitchcock
Nobody earns the right to respect just by having lived into old age, whenever that begins — it has happened…
The lost world of lockdown
It started when, the day after the announcement of some lockdown easing, I drove five miles along the coast road.…
