Why I cried about who I might become “Why do you want to become a French citizen?” I was asked this question at the end of a gruelling two hour naturalisation interview. I burst into tears. “It’s such a difficult and important decision,” I replied, sniffling. “I’ve had to leave too many places I thought of as home. I want […]
Géraldine de Haan Photographer: ‘Along the way’
Géraldine De Haan, photographer and friend I’m lucky to know Géraldine. She is an extraordinary photographer and a stalwart friend. She works tirelessly and quietly at her own photography, but is essential to the Quinzaine de l’Image organised by Peleyre Association and John Eden. She also curates art exhibitions brilliantly. I know. She helped me with my Corpus exhibition at […]
My family and other writers
The unbearable lightness of writing I don’t like all Milan Kundera‘s novels but I did like his The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I joke about the lightness of writing, of course. Writing makes my spirit light even when it is an unbearably heavy task. Being part of a family is both heavy and light work. My daughter, Tanvir Bush, is […]
A hundred years of remembering the Great War
The war to end all wars Tomorrow people in Britain will wear red poppies and visit cenotaphs, war memorials, churches and gravesides to remember those they will call the fallen heroes. In Germany they will carry Forget-me-nots, in France they will wear cornflowers. I will think of that song asking where have the flowers, the girls, the young men, the […]
Blood Red Moon Poem – The Lunar Eclipse 27th July, 2018
LUNAR ECLIPSE JULY 27th, 2018 On a routine night the ordinary moon swims through a shoal of cloud. It slides upwards as blotches of water vapour in saturated air slip away eastwards. It’s a dead ball of dirt whose dust was kicked about by two astronauts in 1969. Held in place by Earth’s gravitational pull, it circles our […]