Posts by tag
childhood
Cocktail Night
From friendship to growing up, Esther Hope Arthurson gives us a snippet on life on cocktail night.
Losing It: Four Cautionary Tales of Travel
In a series of ill goings-on across a life spent travelling the length and breadth of the world, Frank Sonderborg recounts a few cautionary travellers tales.
The Job Interview
Skint but with the mouth-watering prospect of working as a potwash in the local pub, famous for its aroma of old farts, Holly Watson reluctantly goes to a job interview.
The Joys of Boys
In a new series on parenthood, Yvonne Hardman, 45-year-old mother of three teenage boys, gives us a stark but witty warning about what is in store for any potential parents.
Parent’s Day
As part of a new series on parenthood, Dee Caples takes a look at the huge perspective shift from childhood to adulthood, and debates what parts to keep and what to throw out when we raise our own children.
Finding Old Friends
In our adversarial society where politics seem to triumph over personal connections and even common sense, finding old friends seems almost anachronistic. Historical relationships provides the promise of glue that keeps us joined to our own lives. Connectivity offers hope in an uncertain world.
In Search of 53 German Student Girls
The dance that night was in a converted cinema. We sat in the front row seats and watched the natives giving it, like it was 1919. Country and western was big in the hinterlands back in the day. Sugary sweet songs of the poor emigrant Paddy in his bed-sit in London, pining for his golden haired girlfriend and his silver haired mother while he drank himself into a stupor.
How Black Was My Thumb?
I finish my £8.30 pint and head for where I used to live. Why? I’ve started writing now, I might as well go. It’s an ex-council block. East London thick brick. Rubicon cans on the stairwell, faulty lifts. A kid called Abdi that tries to sell you weed every time you see him, even though you tell him that you don’t smoke weed. It was him that I thought I saw walking past the pub. He’s got a dog. He told me that it is was rare for a Bengali to have a dog. I wonder if he’s still here?
Role Reversal
You didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by smoking in front of her, or subject her to secondhand fumes. You huddled in your bedroom with your stash, emerging when the coast was clear. Still, the smell should have been a tip-off. Not to mention your red eyes and dilated pupils.
Greece: There and Back on the Magic Bus. Part 1
Lesson learned. When dealing with the Island Greeks, they’re lovely people, but they’ll take you to the cleaners given half a chance. This deflated our egos for a few nanoseconds. We saw a family out back refilling plastic water bottles from a well. If the silly tourists want bottled water, we’ll sell them bottled water. This was the Greek idea of keeping the tourists happy.
Reclaiming a Dream
After each practice, I would get out that Glovoleum and tenderly apply it to the mitt. Somewhere in my heart, I knew I was out of step, that this love for playing baseball would have to stop at some point. All us girls were approaching adolescence. The social pressures to be girly and adapt to the cultural norms were overwhelming.
The Living Dead
Nanny Pam and me are watching This Morning; there’s a woman on talking about how she’s been cheating on her husband with a ghost. The TV presenter asks if she has ever been intimate with the ghost. Nanny Pam stares at the TV while her Rich Tea biscuit breaks off into her coffee.
Burden
I have killed her in my head more times than I can count. I have attended her funeral. I have wept on her grave. I have cried alone in a room littered with pill bottles and years of filth because I wasn’t there to save her. Every unknown number from Connecticut is her final plea for forgiveness before she swallows the pills or slices the blade across pale blue-veined wrists. I am a bad son. I let her do this. It is all my fault.
Do You Remember Friday?
Do you remember Fridays? The indescribable feeling of utter joy that signified that thankfully school was over for another two days. The misery of sitting in a classroom against your will was to be alleviated and replaced with the respite of resentment from parents who didn’t know what to do with you. Yes, Friday was a fine time. Friday represented hope a brief, fleeting window in which anything was possible and the misery of school, with its press-gang style education was exposed for what it was, finite.
Show Me Your Teeth
Mouth open as he presses cold metal against each tooth. Leaning over me, he recites codes I don’t understand to his assistant. When it’s over, he smiles and tells me, to my surprise, that I have good teeth. Good, straight teeth. It means more to me than it should. I tell myself he says that to all his patients. Within reason.
If we build it : the reality of being homeless
The reality of being homeless exposed by those currently living it.
This too is normal
Frank Sonderborg has some life lessons for a new father. Don’t worry, it’s all normal.
The Wedding
A funny recollection of a wedding that wasn’t to be from a young girl growing up in 90s Britain.
Haitian Heroes
Haitian Heroes is a photography project by Dominik Prinz. Haitian Heroes tells stories of courage, bravery and hope among Port au Prince’s poorest children.
