I’ve been a bit quiet over the last month or so on here because I’ve been suffering for the last three months with urinary tract symptoms that simply won’t go away. It’s become debilitating and wearing being in constant pain, and not being able to treat it properly, and has led me to discover how… Continue reading Chronic UTIs and the scandal of poor testing

During lockdown, I’ve been enjoying ‘growing my own’ and have cultivated a decent vegetable garden! It made me reflect on food in the war years and how rationing must have affected people. Nan writes about this when recalling her recuperation from appendicitis back in London during the war: ‘It was while I was at home… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Rationing

The Coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on many sectors, particularly the arts and heritage, where many museums and theatres are teetering on the brink of survival. Whilst reading through my Nan’s memoirs, recollections of how London theatre coped during the war years shows the importance of the arts in pulling people through the… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Theatre in the war years

Although my nan and grandad knew each other, they had not yet got together at the time of VE Day in 1945. My nan was in London, whilst my grandad was travelling back from where he had been stationed in Burma, via South Africa. Nan doesn’t say a huge amount about VE Day in her… Continue reading Nan’s VE Day

Nan’s third billet during evacuation was with a girl called Jean and was ‘like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, as the food situation was so alien to us because my mother was an excellent cook and we always had smashing food at home; it was such a contrast to come to these… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Evacuation – billet #3

In my diary of 1990, on this day then, we went to the Nelson Mandela concert at Wembley, officially called ‘Nelson Mandela: An International Tribute for a Free South Africa’, held two months after his release. ‘Today we went to the Nelson Mandela concert. Joe (my brother) stayed at Nan’s. Aswad played and someone from… Continue reading Dear Diary: April 16th

When Nan got to Dorking, all the children were lined up outside the council offices so that they could be chosen by those agreeing to take evacuees in. She says: ‘Can you imagine people walking up and down to see which of the children they preferred? Some liked pretty little girls – that left me… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Evacuation – billet #2

As well as my own diary of 1990, before she died, my nan wrote a memoir called ‘A Life Worth Living’, detailing her life up to her 70th birthday. It’s full of all the things you wish you’d questioned loved ones on before they are no longer here to ask. I’ve leafed back through it… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Evacuation – billet #1

So today’s diary entry from 1990 fell on Mother’s Day that year. I’m sure my mum was delighted to be taken out for the day to do this: Dear Diary: Today is Mother’s Day. I gave mum her card. Then we went to London on the coach for the Anti-Apartheid South Africa Freedom Now March.… Continue reading Dear Diary: March 25th

So during a time that many will look back on as one of the most defining of recent times, I thought I’d dig out some old diaries and see what was happening on this day then, to take my mind off things. The one full diary I ever wrote was in the year 1990 when… Continue reading Dear Diary: March 21st