Category Archives: The stuff of daily life

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 →

‘The Beatles will be remembered long after Abba have been forgotten.’ It was an assertion with which it would have been hard to argue.  It was the late 1970s and Abba were at the height of their popularity, but the … Continue reading →

There was a poetry in the hymns we sang at High Ham Primary School.  Apart from the entirely banal When a knight won his spurs, the choices from our hymnbook were weighty in theological and literary terms.  Even to someone … Continue reading →

Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper, French almond rock. Bread and butter for your supper, That’s all mother’s got. The words of the skipping song surfaced in my memory. Perhaps primary school was the last time I heard it sung. Of course, … Continue reading →

The rain relented and the grass had dried sufficiently to allow for an attempt to cut it. For years, the garden would have been attacked with a rotary mower that had a 325 cc Briggs and Stratton engine. It was … Continue reading →