Poem and Interview with Steven Hastings to Celebrate National Poetry Day 2021

Memory Clinic II Welcome to the memory clinic. Do you know why you are here?                                                                                     Because I have dementia.                                                 (#                                                 No longer knows …

Lord of All the Dead

Many families have a mythic figure somewhere down the line. Mythic in this context, though, usually means larger than life. They are the relative or ancestors talked about at family get-togethers, their exploits recounted endlessly, typically exaggerated beyond recognition. Yet the mythic status con …

Flashbacks and Flowers

Poetry Showcase: ‘Stranger to Yourself’

Elaine Morgan: A Life Behind the Screen

In 1990, Elaine Morgan ended her forty-year career as a script writer for television and radio with a piece for Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. She was seventy, and, as always, the sharpest observer of what was really going on. Considering her diminishing opportunities, she concluded:   It was no longe …

The End of the Yellow House

When Chief Superintendent Lepinov’s bloated, battered body is discovered in a well with a padded wooden box placed over his bashed-in head on the opening page of Alan Bilton’s The End of the Yellow House, one might suppose this is the beginning of a mystery novel. This notion is reinforced soon afte …