I’m not a religious person, but with Easter almost upon us, the thought of death - and what lies beyond - comes acutely to mind. The younger you are, the fewer people you’re likely to have lost to the Grey Reaper, so this might not mean as much to you. Unless you’re one of the [...]
I don’t know if my brother liked Pink Floyd, but in many ways, he was a crazy diamond. There was a lot I didn’t know about him. My half-brother, to be correct. I didn’t even know he existed until I was eighteen, when my father told me about the son he'd had to a previous [...]
On the eve of my eighteenth birthday, I wrote a sonnet for my future self, so that when I was older and wiser, I could read it and look back on my youth and smile. Several decades later, here I am, on the eve of another significant birthday. So I'm re-reading that sonnet, and looking [...]
Here’s a poignant little poem from long ago, appropriate for today’s theme of love. The Lovers’ Dream To smile upon the moonlight streamAnd laugh and love was their only dream.To gaze contently and happ'ly sigh,No need to fret, to fear or sigh;Just to feel the night’s soft kissThat together wrapped their hearts in bliss,No need [...]
With the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Bierkenau nigh upon us, I find my thoughts travelling to the memory of two survivors of the death camp, and the hugely divergent paths their lives took as free men. More to the point, the hugely different ways in which each of them coped - or didn’t [...]
I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling deep waves of nostalgia whenever New Year’s Eve swings round yet again. Inevitably, I turn to my old diaries, digging them out of the wooden chest in my bedroom. And as I browse through the time-worn pages, I sink into a world gone by: timeless memories that are [...]
If you've ever visited the beautiful historic city of Krakow in Southern Poland, you might be interested in reading on. The extract below will take you on a little time warp back to 1992, the year I moved here. That was barely three years after the end of Communism. The unforgettable atmosphere back then, and [...]
Wendy Skorupski 