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Childhood
On the Cusp
Donald McDonnell
I had to enter the Mater Hospital in Dublin in 1956 when I was nine years old to receive medical treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). Although I was unaware of the deadly nature of this disease, I knew it was a serious matter to be hospitalised.
Afterwards there were more weeks at a convalescent centre. Read more »
This is my sister, Kate, eating ice cream (or is it yoghurt?) on a September day in 1982. This was a few years before I was born, but it's evocative of my own childhood memories of the Strand.
Self described ‘war baby’ Judith Herrin was born in 1942 and lost her father, who was serving in the Air Force, a year later. Her mother, a general practitioner, never remarried. Regardless, Judith remembers a happy childhood and had a very close relationship with her mother, who took her on many holidays to places like Scotland and France. These trips, frequently including forays to ancient castles and other iconic sites, were partly responsible for Judith deciding to become a historian. While studying in Cambridge, the Byzantine era in particular caught her attention. Read more »
David Stone, 64, is a PHD Literature student King’s College London who also spent his late teens in medical school at Charring Cross hospital: he is an expert on the changes in the Strand area in the last 50 or so years.
The Strand is London’s greatest thoroughfare, its huge volumes of human traffic easily eclipsing the throngs of cabs, cars and buses that provide its restless soundtrack. As a pedestrian on the Strand, the predominant feeling is often one of swimming against a tide of people, one of having to anticipate the movements of the onrushing hordes in order to successfully permeate their ranks and emerge unscathed. Read more »
When I type, I wish I could type faster. When I write in ink, I wish my hand was light. When I read, I wish I could have two pairs of eyes. When I talk, I wish I could hear the echo of my words in somebody else’s ear. Mind. When I remember the days of naivety, I wish I could celebrate the time when I was being taught how to read and write. When I sleep, I wish I could remember how it felt to learn to walk. When I sometimes make a swerve to an alley, just off the Strand, I think there has never been anything I wanted to see more. I was talking with my 85 year old Grand mother Dolly Rose Noel nee Julier, who grew up on Austin street Shoreditch.
I mentioned that I was surprised to see tram- lines on old maps of Kingsland and Hackney Road."Oh yes" she said," we used to get on them (the trams) for a penny and stay on all day. The conductor would not chuck us off if we good, and we used to turn the seats for around for him, at the end of the journey, so they'd be pointing the other way at the end of the line."
"So where did you go?" Read more »
During the vote for the increase in student fees, outside the palace of Westminster the students expressed their anger. 