The Sport of Kings

The races are back! Yorkshire has so many racecourses that I have lost count – York, Ripon, Richmond, Doncaster, and Beverley. Maybe others. A fine day, brisk breeze and the horse boxes are lining the road outside the Beverley course. There are ugly dogs, fortunately...

Sorting Out

Sorting, an act of destruction of past memories, or a clearing of debris from treasures hidden beneath? Meaningful books emerge to make the act of rejection, of discarding, of throwing away part of one’s past unbearable. Almost like an injury to one’s past...

Phobias and Fears

As a child, my biggest treat was to go to Chessington Zoo. I would look at the sky to see whether there was enough blue to make a pair of sailor’s trousers. If there was, we would board a train and then a bus to convey us to the promised treat. What was it that...

Hurly-Burly

A medley of tinny sounds. A babble of voices interspersed by screams of delight. Smells stinging one’s nostrils sweetly. Easter. The pier has sprung into life. The one at Hastings is new. The old one caught fire and burnt down. There is something special about a...

The Cruellest Month

T S Eliot wrote in his poem The Wasteland ‘April is the cruellest month…’ Trees and plants burst into sharp green leaves and the first flowers appear. Intermittent sunlight; hailstorms and rainbows – a month of contrasts. Not that long ago I visited a friend. His...