‘I can’t work’: the mothers left to fight alone for their children’s mental health care

Three parents forced to give up their lives and careers to get help for their severely ill children tell their storiesCassandra Leese should have been at the front of the queue when the NHS called on former staff to return to help fight the nascent Cov…

‘‘Shooting has broken our hearts,’ says shattered Plymouth as city mourns its children’s innocence

Keyham’s tight-knit community says the government has ‘big questions’ to answer about gun controlFive-year-old Evie-Rae left her grandmother Terri’s side and carefully placed a pink candle and a teddy bear on the growing pile of tributes at the foot of…

Blood, gore and a healthy dose of catharsis: why horror can be good for us

A grisly feast of scary British films is heading our way. Why now? Once seen as ‘video nasties’, many believe they have a positive role to play in a pandemicThe terror begins in the London of 1985 when Enid Baines, a film censor, spots an eerie reflect…

How the ‘art of the insane’ inspired the surrealists – and was twisted by the Nazis

The author of an acclaimed new book tells how Hitler used works by psychiatric patients in his culture warOn a winter’s day in 1898, a stocky young man with a handlebar moustache was hurrying along the banks of a canal in Hamburg, north Germany. Franz …

‘Thanks for your help, Sticky’: Michael Rosen on learning to walk again after Covid

His traumatic experience with coronavirus inspired the author’s new children’s book – about the ‘friend’ he leaned onIt was the tweet that let the world know Michael Rosen was back on form and on the mend. “My wheelchair days are over. Stick now. Stick…