Researching Charlotte …

Researching Charlotte …

At Shaw’s Corner … There is something fascinating about seeing exactly where noteworthy writers crafted their works, as if we can absorb some o their creative genius from the ether, so a visit to the home of George Bernard Shaw (GBS), winner of a Nobel...
Damnable dementia …

Damnable dementia …

Here’s one written when my mother was still alive and which I’ve since updated …the experience I describe here became a distant memory as my mother’s vascular dementia progressed. Dementia is a demon who created a woman I disliked, dreaded seeing, but felt...
Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832

Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832

Scott’s View Haig’s grave at Dryburgh Library at Abbotsford Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. 1808. My journey to Abbotsford, home of Sir Walter Scott, was originally more a meeting with old friends than anything especially literary....
Life’s support

Life’s support

It’s a death-bed scene. C.J. Flood’s Infinite Sky, a novel of rural England, is not the stuff of idyll. No, this is ‘gypsies’ setting up home on someone’s land, bored out of their skulls vodka-drunk teenagers, poor communication between parents and their children (in...