Monthly Archives: June 2024

Our late member

Posted on 30th June 2024 by Ian

Were I not resident in Ireland, I might be a prime target for Tory canvassers.  A Financial Times subscriber who teaches in a private girls’ school and who paid for the public school education of his own children, I should be … Continue reading →

Posted in This sceptred isle | 3 Comments

Change for the worse

Posted on 28th June 2024 by Ian

Do you remember Z–Cars? It was my favourite television programme when I was a child. In my (faulty) memory, there were Constables Roach and Bannerman in the main car and Quilley in the panda car. Back at the station, Sergeant … Continue reading →

Posted in Unreliable memories | 3 Comments

Swans in the rushes

Posted on 22nd June 2024 by Ian

Walking with  my sister and her dogs along Aller Drove on Sedgemoor, a hissing noise told us we were drawing too close to swans and cygnets. ‘Did I tell you the tale of the swan and the taxidermist? My sister … Continue reading →

Posted in Out and about | 1 Comment

Needing a happy ending

Posted on 21st June 2024 by Ian

Forty years ago, in the summer of 1984, I read most of Jean Paul Sartre’s novel Iron in the Soul, the third volume in a trilogy called the Roads to Freedom. A piece of existentialist fiction, it is set against the … Continue reading →

Posted in The stuff of daily life | Leave a comment

Paying my way

Posted on 8th June 2024 by Ian

The notices advise of road closures in two weeks’ time, the tens of thousands heading to the pop festival at Pilton will cram the routes It is 45 years since I attended the Glastonbury festival.  The attendance was 12,000, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Out and about | 1 Comment