Blog
A day of festive fun – and work
I have one humdinger of a day. Firstly, I shall be wearing my Headway hat today as I join its Cambridgeshire members as a helper in my role as trustee on their annual panto trip to The Arts Theatre, Cambridge to see Cinderella. Headway is particularly thrilled and...
Do Blair and tennis go together?
You have to wonder if it is the same Tony Blair. Our premier of old whose government did nothing to save school playing fields from being sold off and promote their use for health and fitness, is now advocating tennis as a sport which notherners should participate...
Who is Zineta, my new mystery friend?
As I sit in my digitally equipped office and listen to the village school children singing their Christmas carols outside, a cosy fire roaring in the room next door, I pause to think about my new friend Zineta, and the kind of life she is having in Bosnia....
Do our kids have the same hunger to succeed?
Three times in the last hour I have walked into my son David's bedroom where he was supposed to be deeply engrossed in his studies only to find him feverishly excited about a computer game. This is not an isolated incident, it is a very common occurrence. He needs to...
The "forgotten hostages", asking for the impossible
I fear for the safety of our British hostages in Iraq following their evil captors' impossible demands for Britain to pull out of Iraq. We know that this is not going to happen. If the 10 day deadline started from the date when Jason's appeal was broadcast, then it is...
Hi Mike (oops Ian). And my name is not Ethel!
I wondered why Mike walked silently by when I spoke to him at a Christmas bash last week - I called out the wrong name, I should have said Ian! I'm normally good with names, unlike Bryan Appleyard, who becomes readily fixated by ties, agonised expressions,...
The undead – Cambridge Kate’s story
This is Kate's tragic story, she is one of our members of Headway Cambridgeshire, the charity which I support as a trustee and their press officer. It has been featured in The Sunday Times and highlights the incredible difficulties and decisions surrounding patients...
Hoping David will get the all clear today
David and I are heading for Great Ormond Street Hospital again today and I am confident he will finally be discharged following a very painful four years of suffering from chronic osteomyelitis. David's difficulty was that he was not a text book case and it proved...
The missing – Bryan Dos Santos Gomes
One year ago, a tiny four-week-old baby, Bryan Dos Santos Gomes, was abducted from his mother's arms at knifepoint by a woman they had stopped to help and has never been seen since. Bryan, then 28 days old, was abducted on the afternoon of Dec. 1, 2006, after his...