Ravenswood 47 Bristol Road Weston-super-Mare Somerset December 4, 1950 Dear John, Thank you for your last letter. It was lying behind the gas fire in my bedroom. It was a bit brown and crinkly. I think this was because Mummy let me have the fire on before I went to bed last night, […]
Posts in the Writing category:
First Blood, Hektoen, 2016
First Blood Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, 1970 I’m astounded I’ve landed one of the coveted G.O.S. senior resident jobs: the academic nature of the place immediately daunts me. Everyone bows down to its status as the foremost pediatric research hospital in Europe, perhaps the world, the faculty all confining their work to one or […]
Resolutions
Resolutions After fifteen consecutive days of posting blogs, I’m starting to feel enslaved to my resolution. A common enough experience, I know, especially around every middle of January. Resolutions vary mightily in importance—going cold turkey from an addiction to cigarettes at aged 31 felt like my life depended on my keeping it, which it probably […]
Boarding School
Writing to myself as a young boy has me revisiting long-forgotten memories. So I’ve decided to borrow another bit from my memoir to recall the awful day I was shipped off to boarding school at aged twelve – a rite of passage for many middle-class English boys. I’ll leave you to judge what lasting effects […]
Journeys with a Thousand Heroes
Journeys with a Thousand Heroes Introduction to my Memoir It was my mother’s precipitate death from cancer that lit the spark for my life caring for children with cancer. They in turn became my mentors and companions on my journey to reclaim—as did Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz—my full intelligence, heart, and home. The […]
Saving Our World
Saving Our World A big topic today. But a moment’s thinking—whenever I remember to do it—reminds me that there can’t be any more compelling subject for anyone who cares about own survival, or about that of our loved ones, or—not a big stretch—about every human being on our planet. Actually, I’m talking about the survival […]
Letter to Mummy
Letter to Mummy Blog 042518 I was inspired to write letters to myself by a letter I wrote to my mother when I turned 65 and retired from forty years of medical practice. Dorothy and I had already written quite a bit about art-based approaches to palliative care, and we learned it was common practice […]
Letters to Myself 4
216 Clydesdale Road Antigonish Nova Scotia January 1st, 2018 Dearest Johnny-Boy Happy New Year! It was lovely to get another letter from you. This time I found it in a book of poems I just happened to feel like reading. I have my own study with hundreds of books in it, so it was […]
Twins
My blog for today – April 22 – is a true story Marilyn Gerriets reminded me of after church today. It’s a tale of karma I hadn’t thought of in twenty years. As always, I’ll put a link on my facebook. Twins Thirteen-year-old Renee had to compose an essay about American health care for a […]
Letters to Myself 2
Letters to Myself (2) All letters deserve an answer, so here goes: my first letter from my present-day self to my six-year-old self. I’m enjoying this new way of journalling – I’d be interested to hear if anyone else out there has ever written to themselves at a younger age. Johnny-Boy was the name my […]