Small Pleasures

In lockdown, small things become sweeter. The forty minutes of official freedom to leave one’s dwelling and wander forth into a strangely silent world has released a chorus of birdsong in clear skies unpolluted by fumes and clatter. It is a strange silence above a...

What Colour is Peace?

In all the fevered debates shadowing the UK’s departure from the European Union one word is rarely mentioned – peace. The historian Winston Churchill behind the better-known politician passionately supported the formation of the 1951 European Coal and Steel Community....

NEIGHING LIKE A MARE

It all started two years ago when the bilingual 5-year-old son of a friend pointed to my nose and said,  ‘There is sangue.’ I thought he wanted to know what sangue meant, so I said, ‘blood’.‘Yes, blood,’ the small child persisted, so I went to look at myself in a...

A Chapter of Incidents

We were all set for London. Every present wrapped and labelled, clothes packed. In fact, we prided ourselves on being unusually well organised, much better than in previous years. We’d be in good time to queue for the Nine Lessons and Carols at St. Paul’s Cathedral in...