Dennis Tomlinson

      A Life Where are the aunts of yesteryear? Where are the moles under Granny’s lawn? Where are the pickled frogs and locusts? Where are the lizards, where the kiss on the banks of the Moselle? Where is the Wall behind the Brandenburg Gate? Where is...

Jenny Hockey

      Bonding I carried you home as if you were an extra bag I might have required while taking my time over shopping — both of us newly hatched on the sun-filled hospital ward. By the time I arrived in the kitchen, the men had already begun on the...

Ann Grant

      Confessions to a neurologist When it started, I’d tip my chin down to my chest, loving the sensation of my body buzzing. I’d wake, fall to the wall, panic crawl to the loo, ask my wife if my palms were really burning hot I choke on nothing but...

Margaret Poynor

      Sugar Daddy The week before Christmas, my friend arranged a blind date for me. In retrospect, she wanted to replace herself with me. Oysters, lobster thermidor, sherry trifle with silky custard in the Savoy Grill. He flattered, flirted, cupped me...

Philip Foster

      At Home with Long John Silver   My mother told me to never suffer fools. “Never suffer fools” she’d say and she hit me round the head. I had an intolerable migraine that stopped me getting out of bed. “Never suffer...