An intermittent diarist throughout most of my life, I began keeping a journal from the start of the March 2020 Coronavirus lockdown. Like many others, I sensed the important intersection that was about to take place between what the American sociologist C Wright Mills called ‘private troubles and public issues’. I maintained my journal untilContinue reading “Introducing a journal of April 2020”
Category Archives: Memoir
Down where the drumlins roll
In the early summer of 1969 and as soon as the dust had settled on my O level exams, I hitch-hiked out from my home in North Yorkshire and headed for Galloway. Unlike Richard Hannay, the fugitive hero of John Buchan’s Thirty-Nine Steps, I was not using this corner of south west Scotland to hide from pursuers,Continue reading “Down where the drumlins roll”
Aspects of daily life
Many years ago I came across a photogravure by the French-domiciled Syrian artist Ghayath Al-Akhras. The image was entitled Passage Quotidien. Structured in descending bands of sepia, from light to dark, it depicted a simple scene on a flat-roofed house, where some family members were handing jugs of water from one to the other asContinue reading “Aspects of daily life”
Walking downstream
At my home in Dumfriesshire, I am fortunate to have a garden that is largely bounded by water. Below our house, a span of the Pennyland Burn sweeps round from a rocky outcrop to form a beautiful arc that straightens out just as it hits an ancient weir, where the water level drops a coupleContinue reading “Walking downstream”
