(originally written on December 31, 2017) Sad to see this venerable drapery shop in Kidsgrove has finally closed down. It belonged to an age when shopping was a […]

(originally written on 29 November, 2017) A grey, overcast day, with the kind of deadening chill in the air that only serves to lower the spirits ; so […]

(originally written on November 2, 2017) “They were all to her as magic casements, some cracked, some gravelled with faults, but each opening out on that secret world […]

(originally written on November 1, 2017) Strange how things come back to you, unbidden….you might have read my previous blog post about a visit to Tintern Abbey in […]

(originally written on 20 October 2017) It’s 1972, more or less, and life for a teenager in a grubby midlands city is full of the usual concerns – […]

(originally written on October 20 2017) So much rain this week, and staying in tends to make me feel reflective (aka moping about the past)…not, I hope the […]

(originally written on September 21 2017) As in so many city centres, new buildings of variable design quality are being thrown up fast in Derby. The sprawling Eagle […]

(originally written on September 19 2017) Years ago I used to work in a second-hand book shop, which rather grandly preferred to call itself an “antiquarian” bookshop. This […]

(originally written on September 19 2017) Let’s reel back the years, too many years, to 1967. It’s the “Summer of Love”, a time of immense cultural shift and […]