It’s Good Friday today. That might or might not mean anything to you. To be honest, it’s never meant much to me — despite my many attempts over the years to feel the solemnity of the day. But today, it does mean something. Today, the weight and permanence of death — and the hope of [...]
My would-be father was murdered at the age of thirty. Peter Donald Fox, British journalist, shot dead on the beautiful island of Cyprus, the place where the goddess of love was born. But the terrorist who killed Peter was full of hate, not love. I don’t know what kind of gun he used, because the [...]
To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part… No doubt you recognise those timeless words. Perhaps you recited them at your wedding, or heard them recited at someone else’s wedding. But [...]
Probably everyone who’s reading this post will have experienced some kind of loss by now, whether it be for a beloved pet, a close relative, a friend, a partner, or another type of loss entirely. Like everything in life, there are various gradations of sorrow. I was eighteen when my grandmother died. It was a [...]
‘Nearly everything that happens to you in life you forget. Should have kept a journal.’ I came across those words while reading Ian McEwan’s latest novel, ‘Lessons’, and they lifted my mid-winter spirits astronomically. Why? Because keeping a journal is at least one New Year’s Resolution I don’t have to worry about, seeing as I’ve [...]
‘Wow, you all looked so glamorous back then!’ my daughter said to me the other day, with more than a touch of envy. We were browsing through a selection of old photo albums from the late 1980s and early 1990s, and happened to stop at one particularly fetching snapshot: the one I ended up selecting [...]
Have you ever tried keeping a diary? No? Or perhaps you've had a go, maybe even several, but always given up in the end? The thing is, to be a true diary keeper, as I am, you have to have be just a little bit obsessed. But that's okay, we're all a bit obsessed about [...]
Wendy Skorupski 