curiosity about the ways of the world
‘I got the train home. It was rush hour so there were four passengers. On an eight coach train.’
Roz pauses, scissors in hand. ‘At the start of lockdown I quite liked the novelty of a seat to myself,’ she says, meeting my eyes above the mask in the mirror. ‘Now I really miss the banter on the Glasgow train.’
Continue readingMy tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky; It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by; Robert Louis Stevenson: The Lamplighter
My daily walk was later than usual. After five o’clock in January the skies are dark and pavements less inviting. This is Leerie Lamplighter time in Edinburgh and I was remembering… Continue reading
It should be incredible but it’s only too believable in the dysfunctional state we are in. Headlines in the news stir a moment of dislocation. Where exactly are we? What year is this? Continue reading
It’s such a gloriously improbable tale. A young woman on the last day of her holiday on Skye spots an old croft house for sale in an estate agents window. What happens next is the stuff of dreams at the end of a hard working week. Continue reading
Girls will be boys? The terms of employment were simple, if a little strange. The first two women admitted to the staff at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1897 were to be known as ‘boys’ and had to dress like boys too. Continue reading
When I was expecting my first baby a parcel arrived from my Aunty Rene in Ireland. Inside there was a handmade book with advice on how to stay well during pregnancy and many practical instructions for making everything we would need in the first few months of parenthood. Forty years later it occurs to me this was my ‘baby box’. Continue reading
Breakfast on a wintry Edinburgh morning to the background melodies of South Uist. I woke this morning with tunes from last night’s show dancing a jig in my head. It’s a sign of a good performance when both the singer and the songs follow you home. Continue reading
I could hardly watch tonight’s Channel 4 News report from China; it is impossible to imagine the grief of mothers finding the bodies of their children in the rubble of the earthquake. And now I find it difficult to write about the story of an earlier earthquake in China. Of course it is not my story but it stayed in my memory long after I finished reading The Good Women of China by Xinran. Continue reading
“Ordinary women cannot afford sanitary wear. We are using old pieces of cloth or newspapers. Consequently we’re suffering the loss of our dignity and serious infections, in some cases leading to infertility. Many women are facing violence from their husbands who believe these infections to be sexually transmitted.” Thabitha Khumalo, 2006.
Today, when I signed three petitions in support of democracy and human rights for the people of Zimbabwe, I was thinking of the truly remarkable woman I met two years ago. Thabitha Khumalo was in the UK to raise money and support for a campaign to secure safe supplies of sanitary towels for women in Zimbabwe. The economy was so bad – inflation was then a mere 1000% – manufacturers of sanitary products had left the country. An appeal for help produced a generous lorry load of sanitary towels from South Africa but Robert Mugabe refused to let them into the country. Continue reading
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