Hubby’s friend, Steve, was one of the few people I’ve met who could rightly be described as a ‘character’. He did things his own way and seemed to command attention wherever he went. Take the time Hubby and Steve went skiing. Steve arrived in jeans, a raincoat from the Army and Navy Stores, and fingerless … More Travels with Maurice: An Outrageous Adventure in Europe, 1968 by Gary Orleck
Several years ago, I volunteered for an assignment in Milton Keynes. It would last two days and involve an overnight stay. At the end of day one, I checked into my hotel and headed out for a jog. I’d spotted a park on the map and figured an out and back run, including a circuit … More English Journey or the Road to Milton Keynes by Beryl Bainbridge
My job requires me to travel anywhere in Britain and in the last three years it’s taken me to places I’d never visited before, such as Southampton. Southampton, like my home city of Liverpool, built its wealth from its port. I was anticipating a grand waterfront, not necessarily buildings as iconic as the Liver Building … More English Journey by J B Priestley
My father was a Barnardo’s boy. In 1926, aged seven, he was put into the Liverpool Home for Destitute Children and Orphans because his war-widow mother, Agnes, was too poor to keep him. I’d grown up knowing he was brought up in an “orphanage” but took it as read that both his parents were dead. … More Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester
Easter 2013. Hubby had entered a golf competition at his golf club, meaning he would potentially be playing golf every single day across the whole weekend: one round on Good Friday, two on Easter Saturday, one on Easter Sunday, two on Easter Monday. This was the third year running and I’ll admit, I saw my … More The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather
If you read my last blog you might remember I suggested the literary tourists among you might consider visiting the Mauritshuis art museum, The Hague, to check out Carel Fabritius’s The Goldfinch and Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, paintings which inspired novels by Donna Tartt and Tracey Chevalier respectively. I have succumbed to … More Footnotes – A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers by Peter Fiennes
‘Without families you don’t get stories.’ At the time of writing I’m on holiday on Corfu. In normal life my brain is chock-full of jobs-to-do but on holiday I have time to think, which isn’t always a good thing. One night (admittedly after several glasses of the local wine) I got upset about not having … More The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es
Biographies are like busses, you wait for one for ages then three come along at once… My Uncle Bobbie died earlier this year just under two weeks before his 96th birthday. It seems strange to refer to the death of a nonagenarian as a shock, but it was, because he wasn’t ill. On the morning … More Somewhere Towards The End by Diana Athill
When I was growing up, phrases such as ‘no-one likes a show-off’ and ‘pride comes before a fall’ were common family currency, ‘getting above yourself’ was a crime, and punishment by being ‘taken down a peg or two’ was swift and inevitable. In short, as a child I was taught not to place too high … More The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Mona Lisa Sunflowers The Scream Even if you know nothing much about art (like me) and you hear the name Leonardo de Vinci, Van Gogh, and Munch, then I bet you’ll immediately think of the paintings just listed. If you think a bit longer and harder, of course, you might come up with some others, … More A Life of Picasso Volume 1: 1881 – 1906 by John Richardson
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