A perhaps hand – or so ee cummings said in his poem – he of the absence of capital letters and punctuation school of thought. And this year, this particular spring, his poem seems more pertinent than ever before. We seem to have lived with Perhaps for the past 12 months, after all. Perhaps we’ll be able to meet in a month or so – perhaps we will be permitted to share a park bench by next week – perhaps we will get our normal lives back – Then there’s cummings other spring poem, in just – and the wonderful...

When you start thinking about it, there are an awful lot of absent mothers in literature. So many heroines in classic novels seem to be without a mother which is not surprising given the mortality rate during childbirth in the 19th century. Let alone the lack of prenatal and antenatal care around in the days of multiple pregnancies – not to mention a slight disregard for pain relief and hygienic conditions … I mean think of them: orphans Jane Eyre, Bathsheba Everdene and Eustacia Vye. Emma Woodhouse and Anne Elliot dependent only on paternal influence. And Henry James seems equally...

They betray us, words. Our vocabulary and daily usage hooks us inevitably to an age and an era. Just as our understanding of phrases and even the function of objects are escapable giveaways of the decade into which we were born. There’s a kind of social history attached to words that we are not particularly aware of until speaking to someone considerably younger. I mean, how many millennials have ever encountered the word gusset? Or understand the phrase bought on the never-never? Or saving for one’s bottom drawer? And as for the idea of saving and sticking small green stamps...

It would have seemed unimaginable to previous generations. This past twelve months or so have, after all, deprived us of much, but gifted us – or some of us – chunks of time that are elusive in the normal scheme of things. And people have been responding. Homemade bread has evidently become ‘a thing’ with sour dough for some reason being given star status and the subject of endless WhatsApp communications. Neglected flutes, guitars, violins et al have been picked up, dusted off and some semblance of sound encouraged out of the instruments by their owners who last attempted a...