Biography
An Everyday Story of London Folk
My mother died on 14 February 2002. It still feels like only yesterday I lost her. Very suddenly without any previous illness. My mum was born in 1919 to a war torn and disabled father [more…]
Biography
Biography
Sailing my life away, part 20
COMMENTS I visited Cambridge and Ely at the start of my summer break. Here are a couple of pics taken there. I drafted parts 18,19 and 20 of these tales before leaving home to get [more…]
Biography
Sailing my life away, part 19
RESPONSE TO COMMENTS ON PART 17 There were some great comments on Part 17 so thanks to every-one for that. There are two in particular and one question I’d like to pick out and reproduce. I [more…]
Arts
Sailing my life away, part 18
A SUMMER BREAK I am now away from home for about six weeks and have suspended for this issue a continuation of the story of Alchemi’s 1997 Voyage covering the leg from Oslo to Bergen. [more…]
Biography
Sailing my life away, Part 17
PIRACY – 1 I have promised to write something about piracy in the form of shortish mini-essays embedded within articles about my sailing life. Here’s my first effort. The word piracy and its associated [more…]
Biography
Take Your Daughter to Work Day
Prologue by Roger Ackroyd Recently located in the piles of papers here at Ackroyd Towers was a copy of a report made by Lily Ackroyd on her “Take your daughter to work day” assignment for [more…]
Biography
Sailing my life away, part 16
REFLECTIONS ON PIRACY I appreciated the warm reception given to Part 15 from several people and thank them all for reading and commenting on it. I especially wish good fortune and happy sailing to [more…]
Biography
My Time in Parliament
Having left for an idyllic childhood in a Leicestershire village at the age of 18 months, I returned to London in 1968 when I was posted to the MoD’s Army Contracts HQ in Southwark as [more…]
Biography
Sailing my life away, part 15
COMMENT ON THE COMMENTS ON PART 14 A few readers said they appreciated my responses to comments on Part 13 so I do the same again for Part 14. Bobo provided a link for Foxoles [more…]