Settlers and the unsettled I grew up in a settler community of new homes but the land we took was already the home of African peoples. Many of my school friends’ families were Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe who had nowhere else to go and hoped one day to go to Israel. I quote from a friend Paul M who […]
We need new names and new roles
Do we marry a person or marry a wife or husband? We were a new family, my mother, stepfather, two step-sisters, my sister and me. I was 16 years old when my mother and stepfather had a bitter argument – a natural part of adapting to a new relationship. My mother in utter misery, took to her bed weeping and […]
International Albinism Awareness Day
I’m writing a new story titled The Colourless Child. It’s taking me on a new journey and I’m making new discoveries. This Sunday 13th June is the United Nations International Albinism Awareness Day and the theme is Strength Beyond all Odds When I lived in Zambia I taught art at the International School and this wonderful photo by Ian Murphy […]
The colour of light and the rainbow
What made the Europeans:- the French, the British and the Germans and the rest so successful at building their empires? What made them so cruel in the execution of their power? Was it that thin epidermal layer that covered their bodies yet provided minimal pigmentation protection? Did their skin colouration make them evil? Did it make them successful? Technology and […]
Blame it on the man in the brandy barrel – Admiral Nelson
Art and storytelling 200 years later by a distant descendant. Born into the British Empire during the Second World War in a colonial country that no longer exists, I’ve been flung around in a turbulent vortex of political and personal change. My art and my writing are the ways I hang on to the world spinning around me. I have […]