My creativity can be traced back to my heritage, to the skin colour that defined how I was perceived. But, like my ancestors, I wouldn’t accept defeatWhen I won the Booker prize in 2019 for my novel Girl, Woman, Other, I became an “overnight success”, …
You be the judge: is it ever OK to put eggshells back in the box?
In our new column, we air both sides of a domestic disagreement – and ask you to deliver a verdictHave a disagreement you’d like settled? Or want to be part of our jury? Click here Continue reading…
The great sperm heist: ‘They were playing with people’s lives’
Paul was in his 80s when someone called to say she was his daughter, conceived in a fertility clinic with his sperm. The only problem? He’d never donated anyFor 40 years, Catherine Simpson thought she knew who she was: a nurse, a mother of three, a dau…
Tim Dowling: My childhood home has been taken over by wildlife
I don’t recognise the place where I grew up any more. The skyline has mutated and there are animals everywhereAt the beach down the road from my father’s house in Connecticut there is a goose standing on one leg near the water’s edge. It’s standing on …
A new start after 60: I became a priest at 63 – after 44 years as a soldier and a teacher
Newly installed in a Northumberland vicarage, Diana Johnson first felt her calling decades ago. But the church had to wait until she had raised her family – and transitionedAt 66, Diana Johnson has just embarked on her third career. She has moved to a …
The economy has shafted millennials: now it wants their offspring too | Joel Golby
Yes, we know you can’t afford to have children. But if the economy tanks because of the low birthrate, you’ll be to blameEveryone likes babies, don’t they, with their little tiny toes and the fact that they don’t do anything and are constantly doing th…
Proper sobbing and perspective – what I learned when my younger daughter left home | Adrian Chiles
Seeing your children off to university isn’t easy, but it was worth dragging the dog across a crowded dancefloor to say some goodbyesThis child-leaving-home business seems to get harder every time. My first experience of it was as the child, albeit a 1…
‘Iran was our Hogwarts’: my childhood between Tehran and Essex
Growing up in Essex, my summers in Iran felt like magical interludes from reality – but it was a spell that always had to be brokenWhen I was 12, a bespectacled boy with a shock of thick hair and his forearm in plaster gave me the first Harry Potter bo…
Power of attorney doesn’t help in tackling predatory marriage | Letters
Daphne Franks on one of the many horrendous gaps in procedure that are failing elderly and vulnerable peopleThank you for publishing Anna Moore’s article about our campaign against predatory marriage – we have received many supportive emails from …
Damning report published into death of baby born to teenager in prison cell
Inquiry into how 18-year-old gave birth on her own in HMP Bronzefield in Ashford finds many failingsA catalogue of failures among prison and health professionals has been highlighted in an investigation report into the death of a teenager’s baby after …