Nov 8, 2020
Jack sits by the river in his garden. The shadows are lengthening and a silver disc of moon has appeared in the sky. Trees stir and on the damp twilight air he scents the smokey-grey sharpness of a bonfire. He can’t smell it without remembering. He’s never spoken...
Jul 19, 2020
My family and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Barbara Pointon MBE, who has died aged 80. And it’s not just us who have cause to thank her. Thousands of families across the UK have benefited from the landmark case that this Cambridge music lecturer won in...
May 22, 2020
I came across Robin Hammond’s photographs on Instagram. It was the extraordinary, earthy beauty of the portraits that first drew me to them. Every face captured in his lens is old. And you know, even as you take in the wisdom of their eyes or the dignified curve...
May 10, 2020
Sometimes when I sit down to write my blog I realise that words on a page simply won’t cut it. People need to be there, see the magic, hear the joy. So it is with Turtle Song, an initiative through which those living with dementia, their loved ones and carers, join...
Apr 9, 2020
A recent tweet brought the world up to date with what’s been going on in @suzysopenheart’s world. It is typically outward looking and, as the twitter handle suggests, open hearted, yet with hints of the gritty realities involved when caring for someone you love...
Mar 25, 2020
Amidst the worry and fear of the COVID-19 outbreak something wonderful is happening. We’re Singing Together. When Gareth Malone’s Great British Home Chorus launched online this week – 15,000 of us from around the globe joined in live and a whopping 86,000 watched the...
Feb 29, 2020
An elderly man appears on a hospital’s A & E list one Friday night. Michael Richardson’s pacemaker has literally exploded out of his chest and he is now cradling it gingerly in his hands, “slithering in blood and pus”. Dr Rachel Clarke’s first instinct is...
Dec 17, 2019
My husband, who’s been involved with politics one way or another for over 30 years, looked at his Twitter feed a few days before the general election and said he’d never known such a vitriolic campaign. I wearily agreed. It’s been an unedifying sight watching...
Nov 11, 2019
The Longest Farewell is a hard book to read. It is also an important book with a profound and, against all the odds, ultimately hopeful message. In it, Nula Suchet speaks the unspeakable: she rails against “the bastard dementia” that afflicted her late husband James...
Oct 15, 2019
An envelope arrived in the post the other day from Southampton university. In it was a map – a Map of the Tracks. Intrigued, I unfolded the purple and pink paper to be met by names and places that swept me back to my uni days. There they all were: Swaythling,...
