'ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS' BY BOB DYLAN Reviewed by Eric Maddern
I came of age listening to Bob Dylan. Just nine years older than me he was like a mentor, an older brother. Now, following him into older age, I’m still listening to him, to his ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’. He’s be...
We’re on the cusp of coming out of lockdown. This will be welcome of course: the chance to see friends and family with ease, to go where we please, to make plans again after so many were cancelled. But before we get caught up in the whirl of whatever the ‘new normal’ w...
Over the winter two mature oaks fell from the riverbank into Afon Fachwen, the little white river. One was near the gate to the Padarn Country Park. The other toppled onto the old slate bridge.
The first tree left a gaping hole where its root ball had been wrenched from...
A couple of Christmases ago Angharad gave me 'La Belle Sauvage', the first volume in Philip Pullman’s second trilogy, ‘The Book of Dust’. It had just been published. Despite devouring the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, after a few pages I set it on the shelf where it la...
It can be a risky thing coming clean about your age. My Dad never tells anyone. He says people pigeonhole you when know how old you are and treat you accordingly. It’s age prejudice. ‘You can’t do that, you’re too old!’ He never really approved of birthdays. So there’s...
I sometimes quote the saying that ‘you can’t make old friends’. It’s a way of encouraging myself and others to keep up with long time friendships. After all it can take years, even decades, for a new person in your life to feel like an old pal.
Liverpool was blitzed during WWII. Buildings were blown apart and some of the brick debris washed down to the sea. There it’s been weathered by the elements over the decades and now there’s a beach strewn with brick pebbles.
Cousin Mark (well, second cousin) is the only one of my Aussie relatives who’s stayed and worked at Cae Mabon. He’s a traveller and adventurer (like I once was) and here describes his time working on a banana plantation in northern Queensland.
I did something I’d not done before on Election Day. Aberconwy is a marginal seat between the Tories and Labour. So I went down to the Llandudno Labour Club and, for a tokenistic three hours, helped ‘get the vote out’ for Emily Owen, the 25-year-old Labour candidate. S...
The Liverpool Arts Labbers are a bunch of amazing artists and performers. Wacky and full of heart they make extraordinary things happen. They were on the Cerne to CERN pilgrimage and planted a magnolia tree in Jung’s garden. In November they were the last group of the...
