In this coming Christmas season St Augustine’s Church, Norwich, will be holding an Alternative Carol Service, as it has for the last 20 years or so. Part of this event will be a series of dramatic interludes, taking place this…
Out on a limb,like desperate travellers looking for somewhere to staylike lonely shepherds in the darklike a young girl suddenly with childlike wise men laughed at, following a wild idea we are lost in a shapeless worldwaiting for something to…
Read: Lost and found
Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing. I did not…
I stand on the edge of eternity:a door opens, and I look back at the universe,which sparkles and throbs with life I know I must not touchthe angel at the doorof creation If I do, I will have to go…
Read: Edge of eternity
Sixty years on, the trainsstill run at the bottom of my garden. I return, expecting to seeuprooted rails, something for walkers,a crazed cycle path,but I hear the train, and I seethe track, though the meadows it ran throughhave been shaved…
Read: When my father was alive
Last week saw a rather sad landmark for the Lenton family: my uncle Paul, the youngest of my father’s brothers, died at the age of 96. He was the last of his generation, and the longest-lived. This of course means…
Travelling back through the centuriespast standing stonesand hollow hungry mounds,we arrive at Yesnaby, where cliffs and castlesfall into the sea, waves crash recklessly ineating away at what is unseen,giving us no warningthat soon we will be crashing toostruck down by a…
Read: Yesnaby
It is now a week since I had the plaster cast removed from my left arm. It seems longer. The cast had been on for five weeks and was getting extremely annoying. It was mainly the itching, but also the…
Sun peppers the sea as we step like ghostsdown from the dark gallerieswhere the blood-red line between beauty and terroris sometimes visiblebehind the writing on the wall Disintegrating tree-stumpsmark the ancient quaylong sucked away We, lost children senton a forgotten…
Read: This is not home
I discovered this week that Archant – formerly Eastern Counties Newspapers, where I worked for 30 years – is closing its print works at Thorpe St Andrew, on the fringe of Norwich. This was a bit of a shock, because…