​I grew up on the border between England and Wales, then went to study Zoology at Cambridge University, followed by Psychology at St Andrews. I am now a hypnotherapist and mindful movement/dance teacher, and part-time poet and crafter. I love and am greatly influenced by the natural world, myths and legends, and the complex connection between people, our bodies, and nature. Having recently started attempting to write my own novel, I have a renewed respect for those authors whose books I have read and enjoyed! I have so many favourite books it was a real challenge to get it down to just five, but here they are…

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​Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

This is one of those books that is equally enchanting for adults as it is for children. I love how Michelle Paver has captured the essence of what it might be like to live in the forests of our hunter-gatherer past, where humans lived in more spiritual connection with the natural world. She has employed extensive and thorough research, making Torak and Wolf’s world come alive as they search for the Mountain of the World Spirit on a quest to slay the demon bear. The first in a book series I come back to time and time again.

​If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie

​I remember when I first read this thinking that a copy should be given to every girl at school (then revising this to include boys too). It explores the connection between women and the land, and the journey to finding a sense of belonging in the modern corporate ‘wasteland’, gaining inspiration from Celtic myths as well as contemporary women who have found ways of living more rooted lives. It has been described as a Celtic ‘Women who Run with the Wolves’, though in my opinion it is much better, easier to read, and more relevant to life in the UK.

The Mabinogion translation by Sioned Davies

This book is a collection of truly wonderful and magical stories from ancient Wales, which take place both in this world and the Celtic Otherworld. I have a particular love of the 4th branch, the story of Lleu and Blodeuwedd: I have studied it thoroughly, through multiple layers of meaning, and it has made a huge impression on my life. I also highly recommend Damh the Bard’s musical interpretations (find them here: www.paganmusic.co.uk).

A Brief History of Nakedness by Philip Carr-Gomm

​This book takes the reader on a journey that spans from ancient religious sadhus all the way to contemporary pagans, advertisers and protesters, exploring and tracing humans’ sometimes bizarre, sometimes touching, and often complex, relationships with our naked bodies. I found it both entertaining and enlightening - not only informative and thought-provoking, but also a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Instrumental by James Rhodes

This is not an easy book to read, but one I bought a second copy of - to lend out to others so they could read it too. Both an autobiography and a love letter to music, the book tells of how music was a lifeline to Rhodes as he faced a childhood full of unspeakable trauma, and how, against all the odds, he pursued his passion to become a renowned concert pianist. A remarkable man. Hear him play here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ82pECqiUg.

A side-effect of the current Covid-19 lockdown, and admittedly a very high-class problem, is our growing hair, and the likelihood of not getting to the hairdresser's any time soon! The only other similar situation that comes to mind is that of the residents of the village of Oberammergau in Passion Play* year, which, incidentally has, along with so many other events, been postponed.

I, along with one of my five brothers, and my son, were all blessed with the same unusually thick hair. I recall at Hastings College in the early 1970s, I spent a whole hour in the student common room merrily braiding my long hair in tiny plaits. The problem was that my sister-in-law, who I was emulating, had very fine hair, and used this method to plump hers up. When I undid mine in the changing room, I found I had something that verged on a giant Afro, and I crept home praying that no-one would see me.

My son has now resorted to buying a pair of clippers, and my daughter-in-law has done a good job. But I don't think I can risk it, as Cell Block H is not currently casting, and that's certainly the look I'd end up with. That or Magwitch on a bad day.

Two salutory tales:

When really quite small, I found a pair of interesting large scissors (wallpaper scissors I later discovered) in our laundry room (I also found a pack of Robin starch which I innocently fed to the birds, but that's another story). I thought it might be a good idea to cut my hair, as I truly loathed hairdresser visits. However, when I regarded my work in a mirror, it must have struck me that it didn't look too great, as I went and put on my swimming-cap and went out to play for the day. Tea-time came, and Mum stood me on the kitchen table for a strip-wash. When she asked me to take that silly hat off, I refused, at which point she removed it herself, and, viewing the results, gave me a good slap on the legs. The next day I was escorted to Dieter Henri's Salon up the Moor to have a corrective cut, no doubt with the habitual frown on my face!

A few years on, in the late sixties, my brother Jonny came down to the kitchen, where I and other members of the family were gathered, in his Vespa scooter crash-helmet. 

"Why are you wearing your crash-helmet, Jonny?"

"Erm, well, I've been cutting my hair with my new clippers."

"Yeah, so ...?"

"Well, erm, I've cut it a bit short..."

Chuckles from us, as he was a bit of a joker, and we thought this was one of his japes.

"No, really - if I take it off, you won't laugh, will you?"

"Course not," sympathetically.

"Promise?"

"Yeah, we won't laugh, honestly."

At which point my hapless brother removed his helmet to reveal a convict-like dome, resembling nothing so much as a newly-mown striped lawn. And this was in the days long before males in every walk of life went round with virtually shaven heads.

Poor Jonny. We fell about, screaming with mocking laughter.  And for some weeks afterwards, he was to be seen about the streets of Cranbrook sporting a woolly bobble-hat, until his hair grew back.

So be warned!

*​http://www.judithjohnson.co.uk/blog/the-passion-play-of-oberammergau

In this really excellent epistolatory novel, von Arnim lays out Fraulein Schmidt’s thoughts and  a whole cast of beautifully-drawn characters so skilfully, using the device of a one-sided correspondence  ie Fraulein Schmidt’s letters to Mr Anstruther. It was published in 1907, seven years before the First World War must have put a temporary stop to young English gentlemen travelling to Germany to learn the language and culture.

I loved reading this, and  will definitely be recommending it not only to friends but also possibly laying in a copy for my baby granddaughters for some future reading. Yes, it’s that good!

*https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/15/tories-libraries-social-mobility-conservative

When I was little and one of eight children, my bedroom was usually at the front of our house, where there was a gravel drive, so my favourite day of the week was Thursdays (even more so in the school holidays, of course!), when I could hear the approaching footsteps of the paper boy with our comics. Between us we had The Eagle, The Beezer, Dandy, Beano, Bunty and Jackie. I think we got Look and Learn at school.

Later in life, when our son was unwell, in addition to his usual comic, I’d pop out and get him an extra one from the local newsagent as a treat, so when my little granddaughter, three years old, was unwell recently, I thought I’d get her one – she loves drawing and is also showing a lot of interest in reading. However, when I had a look at what was on offer I was really taken aback. Every single comic was not only wrapped in plastic but also had a plastic toy attached.  When I was a kid, you’d get the very rare free gift with a comic, maybe once a year, and it was usually stuck on the front with a bit of glue. If you’re the right age, you’ll remember the kind of thing: a little Princess ring, or a paper device that made a bang when you gripped it and threw it forward.

In this time of crisis, when children worldwide are taking to the streets to demand climate action, right now, calling for us to reduce the impact of human over-consumption on our planet, and when David Attenborough and eminent scientists have laid out the devastating reality of the irreparable damage already done to planet Earth, and the legacy of our wasteful civilisation, bequeathed to our children and any future generations to deal with, it’s hard to believe that publishers  of children’s comics can be so blind to all this that they are producing further mountains of plastic to be, eventually, tipped into the sea or landfill sites.

Boycotts can be very effective. May I suggest to all those who care enough, that you take the small steps of not only boycotting children’s comics until this practice is stopped, but also letting the publishers and retail outlets know of the action you’ve taken. In the meantime,  you could go to the public library every week and get out a book (they really need our support), or if you can’t access a library, buy a second-hand children’s book once a week from a charity shop?

​Tales of the  City by Armistead Maupin

A feast of 70's San Francisco served up through the adventures of a diverse group of characters centred around the enigmatic Mrs Madrigal.
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Quirky, amusing and touching - I loved the book and its sequels well before I finally got to San Francisco and explored the locations so vividly depicted.

​The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

The film of this book introduced me to the works of Anne Tyler. Her sensitive observations of everyday minutiae build into portraits of characters for whom you really care as they navigate the emotional pitfalls of relationships and everyday life. 

​Music and Silence by Rose Tremain

No two books by Rose Tremain are ever remotely the same. This captivating novel is set in 1629 when a young English lutenist joins the Royal Orchestra of the melancholic and idealistic Charles IV of Denmark and falls in love with a lady-in-waiting. The intricacies, intrigues and passions of the protagonists and court life are brilliantly painted - with Kirsten, the King's adulterous Consort, a particularly charismatic and memorable character.

Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

Quite different from the "Wallander" books for which he is probably best known, this novel begins on the frozen wastes of a Swedish island where a recluse is forced to undertake a physical and spiritual journey to confront his past and its consequences. Both interior and exterior landscapes are hauntingly realised.

​To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Being one of the "Godless students of Gower Street", I have always been fascinated by the Bloomsbury Group. Set during two visits to Skye, ten years apart, relationships and experiences are perceived through the mind's eyes of the Ramsay family and their guests. Emotions and thoughts constantly shift as each moment passes. It is lyrically written and the interlude "Time Passes" is as near to poetry as prose can get.

I wonder how many people who take their children to see the ducks at Holden Pond in Southborough, or go fishing there, stop to read the memorial to Walter Clary. 

Sadly, although I did once encounter Walter, I missed the chance to get to know a truly memorable man.  He had knocked on our door canvassing for the Labour Party. I told him that my husband and I had always voted Labour, but that in the light of Tony Blair having led Britain into the Iraq War by relying on flawed intelligence (and against the wishes of the majority of the British people, including those of us who took to the streets in unprecedented numbers to protest) we came to the conclusion that we could not in all conscience vote Labour in the next election. Walter was quite noticeably distressed at this, and said he too opposed the War, and Tony Blair, but that the body of the party was greater than one man. For some time afterwards, Walter posted copies of the Labour Party newspaper through our letterbox.

I thought of Walter again, recently, when I reflected that a man like him, whose values and principles underpinned a lifetime of service to the many, not the few, and core Labour till the day he died, would surely be a supporter, were he alive today, of Jeremy Corbyn.

Walter was born in North London in 1920, and left school at 14. He cycled 14 miles daily to and from work in the rubber industry at Kingston-upon-Thames. At 16, he wanted to go to Spain to fight with the communist forces opposing Franco's fascists, but was prevented by his mother, who judged him too young. 

During the Second World War he served with the Royal Engineers in the 20th Bomb Disposal Division, and travelled around Kent clearing mines and disposing of unexploded bombs and shells. The work, and the death of many of his comrades left an enduring mark on him. He met his wife Joyce in 1941 when he was stationed in Tunbridge Wells. Walter was awarded a medal for his six years in bomb disposal, having continued this dangerous work for two years after the war. The family moved to a council flat in Islington after demobilisation in 1947, and the lack of affordable housing at the time fostered Walter's belief in the need for social housing. During an interview in 2002 he said "having a decent home is the basis of a good society". He was also a vocal advocate for the National Health Service, having been a witness to its birth.

After moving to Seal, in Kent, and later Southborough, his day job was with Cable and Wireless as a telegraph operator and then with the Department of Health and Social Security, but it was in his spare time that, throughout his long life, Walter dedicated himself to working for the welfare of others, including the following:

• active member of the Labour Party
• Parish Councillor
• PTA, Scouts, Tenants' Association supporter
• Town and Borough Councillor
• Branch Chairman, Secretary and Conference Delegate, British Legion
• active supporter of Age Concern
• Chair of the Pensioners' Association
• Southborough Town Mayor

Walter was respected by members from all parties in local politics, and was renowned for his kindness, social conscience and straightforward opinions. He was well-known for his letter-writing efforts. In 1990 he hit the headlines when his anger at Margaret Thatcher's imposition of the flat-rate Community Charge (aka the Poll Tax) led to an appearance before local magistrates (his first ever!) for refusing to pay. He said "It was a bad law, and caused great hardship to so many people. I had to speak up on their behalf. It would have been easy just to pay, but I felt I had to go and speak up, I couldn't funk it." To further ram home his point in this fight which he could not win, he wore his war medals to underline his loyalty to those things in which he did believe.

In early 2003, Walter wrote to the Queen asking her to halt the attack on Iraq, and Britain "being dragged to war by the USA." He was a staunch republican, and was disappointed by what he saw as the bland reply from the Queen's Chief Correspondent Officer. He vowed to write again to the Queen, saying that he thought the situation "too serious to wash your hands of."

Walter was also deeply concerned with environmental issues, and his daughter Coral recalled that even as a youth, he would take home stray animals. In Southborough he campaigned successfully for the establishment of a local nature reserve, Barnett's Wood, plus a rolling tree-planting programme. Every year in all weathers he would go out to save migrating frogs from being killed on the roads adjoining the grass around Holden Pond, their ancient spring breeding grounds. He was also a keen supporter of the Kent High Weald environmental project. Walter never owned a car, but instead used a bicycle and public transport to get around.

Walter described himself as a Christian Socialist, and held the view that he should help those in need. But he was no holier-than-thou stuffed shirt, clearly. Martin Betts recalls: "Walter loved people and he loved life... he laughed a lot - particularly at his own expense - and had that rare gift of making people feel good about themselves and had an amazing number of friends."  He kept fit by swimming and weight-lifting, and described himself during a BBC interview, when he was identified as the oldest serving Councillor in Kent, as "a recycled teenager ... inside an old bloke is a young bloke trying to get out!"
 
Walter died on 21 December, 2003 following a stroke. On the day of his stroke, he was planning to distribute funds to pensioners for Christmas. 

Sources:
Press clippings collected by Maxwell Macfarlane, President Southborough Society
Obituary by Martin Betts, Southborough Labour Party
Obituary, Kent  Courier, 2 January 2004
Warwick Diary by Jane Bakowski, Kent Courier, 15 March 2013

​Recovering from particularly vicious flu, have been having some bird therapy today! Listening with full attention to bird song tracks while simultaneously looking at picture of each bird in my 1988 edition Book of British Birds (Readers Digest/AA).



If you love birds as much as I do, please see below (courtesy of and thanks to The Observer - I clipped this from their 19 August 2018 issue), here is a damn good reason to buy organic foodstuffs.

​I was born and raised in New York City and graduated from City College of NY with a degree in sociology.  I spent my study-abroad year in Cardiff and did graduate work in sociology at the LSE.  After a decade of teaching sociology in New Zealand, I returned to New York to teach kids with open court cases in the South Bronx and, later, students with learning disabilities.  I’m now working privately with kids who need learning support and writing poetry in my spare time.  The collection of books on my shelves never shrinks because I keep buying new ones and borrowing others from the library. I have a wonderful, creative daughter and a very young and delightful grandson.

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Strength in Stillness by Bob Roth

When my New York Public Library reserve for this book came through, I had no recollection of how I’d come upon the title.  But I took it home and read this little book in a day.  Bob Roth took up Transcendental Meditation in the 1970’s and has been a practicing teacher of and writer about TM since then. I was so impressed by the clear and convincing account of TM’s benefits and by the scientific research that supports such claims that I did the 4-day TM training last summer and have been meditating since then. If you have even the slightest interest in taking up some form of meditation, I recommend that you read this first.

​Deep Work by Cal Newport

​While most of us simply wonder where all our time goes and why we are not as productive as we’d like to be, Cal Newport has developed a way to maximize his productivity every moment of the day with the end result of greater satisfaction and more time to play with his young children. An assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University, Newport has devised a method for getting the noise, distractions, and irrelevant efforts out of our lives. The techniques he developed for himself are widely applicable to us all.  Reading the book transforms your view of what really matters in life and how to align your goals with your actions.  I loved it so much that I typed pages of notes from the book before returning it to the library.

​The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

​I remember exactly where I was some 40+ years ago (my boyfriend’s flat, Stamford Hill) when I read Ian McEwan’s first collection of short stories. Since then, he has continued to be one of the few fiction writers whose work I read. I have recommended The Child in Time to countless friends. The opening chapter will send you into a paroxysm of anxiety, but your suffering will pay off. I can’t say much about the plot without spoiling it (unless you have seen the 2018 movie of the book with Benedict Cumberbatch), but it is about time, love, and grief.  And, of course, as it is by Ian McEwan, it is beautifully written.

​Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds

​I share with my good friend Judith Johnson a love of Sharon Olds’s poetry.  This Pulitzer Prize-winning collection was occasioned by the author’s divorce, and it is in turn raw and elegant. The poems are arranged in a narrative sequence that takes the reader through Olds’s journey from disbelief to anger to grief and, finally, to acceptance and healing. 

​The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord

If you feel that your spirits need lifting after reading my last two recommendations, The Giant Jam Sandwich is the book for you. This is a children’s book that delighted my daughter when she was young, and which I often send to parents-to-be. Even very young children will be intrigued by the complex plot, for it is conveyed with such energy, action, and rhythm (along with delicate illustrations) that it will hold their attention and leave them wide-eyed as you turn from page to page.  If you want to find out how the town of Itching Down deals with an invasion of four million wasps, you’ll just have to read the book yourself.