Wrapped in the Flag?

Wrapped in the Flag?

I was brought up a ‘service brat’. I am the son of a man whose adult life, from age 16 to 53 was spent serving his country. My father came from a poor background. Grandma and grandad lived in a council house in Bromborough in the Wirral, just across the Mersey from...
A Practised Eye

A Practised Eye

I have been using a digital camera now for some 15 years. My first had a marvellous 2.5-megapixel sensor, my latest comes in at 55-megapixels. A bit like the early days of computers the process of development has engulfed photographers in upgrade after expensive...
Tunnel Vision

Tunnel Vision

“I think therefore I am” 17th century philosopher Descartes doubted everything he said and began his treatise by saying that everything he knew was false. By denying everything, he can begin his argument free and clear of prejudice, with an open and innocent mind....
Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft

Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft

Sussex has many pretty villages, and Ditchling shows how many are being spoiled by traffic and their identities being subsumed into the metropolitan urbanity. The centre of Ditchling is the traffic jammed mini-roundabout, and of the rural lifestyle that attracted...
In a Mad World

In a Mad World

The writing was on the wall in Europe long before 1939. Hitler came to power in 1933, the culmination of a series of economic and political catastrophes across Europe. Churchill warned a complacent British political class (aren’t they always?) of the dangers on the...
Shingle and Sand

Shingle and Sand

The soft susurrations of shingle stones in Sussex on calm days are few by comparison with the shattering crash of waves in mad March days. Pebbles can be thrown hundreds of feet by forceful waves measured on the Channel wave buoy at nearly 14metres from peak to...
The Cat Sat

The Cat Sat

Spring is sprung in the garden. The occasional night drops below zero and we have the occasional frost but the daffodils are out, crocuses abound and everything is popping into bud. The right time to start a new piece of work and do a bit of a spring clean to the...