If there are such things as retrospective anxiety attacks, then I have just had another. I am talking about sudden flashbacks, often of close shaves, where the memories momentarily send shivers of anxiety down one’s spine. So, occasionally, I will get a flashback to that moment when, as a teenager, I am clinging to a…
Aladdin’s cave
For visitors to London a traditional, albeit quirky, tourist attraction is the food hall at Harrods. In Moscow the equivalent would be the vaulted galleries at GUM; in Paris, perhaps the magnificent glass and steel dome at Galleries Lafayette. At the other extreme and again in Paris, there is the basement of BHV, formally known…
Harvest home
The last days of the summer holidays were frenetic. Jobs put off from back in July had to be done. The saplings needed stouter stakes to help them withstand the ferocious winter winds – this took one morning. The overlong reeds in the field needed cutting down – another morning. There was the usual cleaning…
Last words
By their very nature the last words people utter carry a very special significance. To those who are close, they can bring solace or can engender guilt and anxiety, but whichever, they are likely to linger indefinitely. They somehow encapsulate our memories of the dead person, even becoming a sort of personification. And there are…
Powers of observation
And the curious case of the Lowcock leg.. How conduct and values have changed! I was a young doctor and the consultant asked me to teach first-year medical students. The topic was, “How to examine the chest?” and the date - probably the early 1970s. The memory of the event is excruciating. The patient I…
A difficult teenager
It was going to be a difficult week – or so I was told. Our niece, now 16, was coming to stay with us in France. It involved quite a complicated journey and beforehand there were endless texts and phone calls from her Dad (her parents are divorced) to check everything was allright. Finally I…
A late addition to Dad’s collection
As he got older my father became fascinated by ‘boring’ picture post cards. Gradually he became part of a circle of collectors and cards would arrive from around the world. Their very incongruity amused him and his face would light up when a new one dropped through the letter box. He judged them on content,…
Field of glory
It is now mid August and she has lost much of her splendour. In the last week her vibrant reds and subtle blues have faded and she no longer turns heads. How very different from two weeks ago. Then, we were living a dream that took five years to materialise. I am talking about the…
Noises off
We had key differences to resolve so inevitably our meeting was going to be strained. Ben had suggested the tea room on the first floor of one of London’s grander main-line station hotels. It was seedy and costly with waitresses over-ingratiating and over made-up. But discussions went well. The quietness there allowed us to hear…
Fair game
Claims championing the prowess of women have come thick and fast in the last weeks. First, it was over a meal when one of my sons argued forcefully that women have always been the great civilisers, and that it is through their influence on men that people live together as citizens and that society has…
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