In the early 1930s, our paternal grandparents bought a house on the Grosvenor Road in the East End of London. I have no idea how they financed it, but I suspect it was through sheer weight of numbers. They crammed 2 adults and 4 kids into the top floor and rented the ground floor to relatives, all of whom shared a kitchen and toilet. Miraculously, it survived the Blitz but had degenerated into a hoard by the late 1950’s, when they sold it to Jamaican immigrants, who had no

I’ve been to Amsterdam twice, both times at Easter. The first trip was on The Magic Bus, a hippie company that gave backpackers easy access to all the European capitals, including its most famous route - a 5-day non-stop to Athens. Anyway, in 1979, it was ten quid to Amsterdam, I was at a loose end, and booked a ticket for the long weekend. On that particular Good Friday, there were two buses leaving for Holland, a British model more suited to prison transport and a luxuri

The author - 1982 In the spring of 1982, I was in my second year of university, majoring in Religion, and living off-campus in a cottage owned by the Catholic Church. I’d lucked into this rental, after flatting with two graduate students both of whom seemed incapable of finishing anything, let alone a thesis. I’d learned of the vacancy from a couple I met through friends; it was ramshackle, bordering on dilapidated, but conveniently located on the river bank a quarter of a

Alistair MacLean was famous for his action plots and ‘HMS Ulysses’ runs true to type. It’s set aboard a light cruiser during World War 2, and the book opens with a mutiny. The crew has had a bellyful of the Russian convoys: 4 hours sleep a day, hundreds of days at a stretch in 60-below weather, TB incubating in the enclosed living quarters, and nothing to eat but corned beef sandwiches. To redeem themselves they are forced into a final run through the black-out route to Murma