An Ordered Life by Philip Shelley
THE STORY …is a thinly-veiled fictionalisation of my own father, who died 4 years ago. The trigger for this whole project though was the death of my mother who died in March. The moment when your second parent dies is a big one in anyone’s life, alerting you even more sharply to your own […]
My Immortal Mother by Carol Cooper
THE STORY Some writers say they have a ‘knot’ they keep worrying at that makes them write. Maybe my mother, Wendy, has been my knot. I always knew I would write about her after her death, when I was no longer caught up in the intense, all-consuming business of being her daughter. Tribute’s origins […]
Valediction Forbidding Mourning by Katy Walker
THE STORY This piece takes its name from John Donne’s poem of the same name. I checked my emails on the way home from a conference on antibiotic resistance and there was a round robin email asking for my favourite poem. I sent them ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’, a beautiful, clever poem in which […]