Poetry Book Review

    Book Review: John Alcock    futura ventura    ISBN 978-0-9538900-2-6 While neither art nor science finds A limit to our human minds.   So ends, futura ventura, the title poem of this collection, by the late John Alcock. This impressive Pushkin...

Thirteen Trees, Thirteen Moons

In December 2018, I began an online course, Tongues in Trees,  provided by Roselle Angwin. I was looking to re-acquaint myself with the names and nature of trees I had thought little about since childhood. The course followed the Celtic moon calendar and 13 specific...

Unreliable memory

I remember the Aberfan disaster.    21st October 1966.    240 children in school.   9.15 am. An avalanche of coal waste slid and engulfed Pantglas Junior school, 116 children died. 28 adults,  some occupants of nearby houses. Aberfan Colliery Spoil Tramway, July 1964 ...

Blocks to writing

Sometimes it seems impossible to write. It is important to analyse why because the answer isn’t always going to bed with a good book. Professional and amateur creatives can suffer. Here are a few possible causes and possible solutions. A representation of...

Hull’s first female GP and suffragist

Hull was fortunate to have one of the 1st women GPs in the UK. Dr. Mary Murdoch. At the time my grandparents lived in the city and it would be interesting to know if they had heard of her. They lived in East Hull, so it’s unlikely they were patients in her...

Time to Relax

The morning after I arrived at our caravan in Talybont, I relaxed. When I stood outside I could hear the sea. A two-minute walk and we were on the beach. The regular and relentless movement of the tide brings a perspective hard to find in the busyness of work and...