Category Archives: This sceptred isle

BBC Radio 4’s Last Word programme included an obituary for Mary Kemp, a leading figure in the rise of the Green Party. Thirty years ago, with Derek Wall, Mary Kemp was co-author of A Green Manifesto for the 1990s. Kemp … Continue reading →

Midsummer’s Night: the last time I encountered the play inspired by the occasion was not at the theatre, but in a classroom. Called to cover a Year 7 class for an English teacher, I was delighted to find that they … Continue reading →

The school sports day is approaching and tutor groups discussed who from their groups would represent their house in a day of competitive athletics. A spirit of rivalry quickly emerged, no-one wanted to allow anyone to enter who did not … Continue reading →

It was on this day, 8th June 1949, that George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. Terminally ill, he died seven months later, an Orwell who lived into a ripe old age might have felt there was a depressing familiarity … Continue reading →

The church door was locked. Church doors seem locked most of the time now. Perhaps it is some restriction related to the virus, or perhaps the person who once opened and closed the church each day has had, through age … Continue reading →