It was once a part of Japanese culture that a man, returning home from a night with his mistress, was required to write her either a thank-you letter for the time together, or a suitable poem. This missive was then delivered as quickly as possible so that the mistress, waiting for his note, could go…

I am used to delays in receiving post, in letters being sent from here, taking several weeks to arrive, and the answers, when written, taking two or three weeks to get back here. In most cases this means I can be happy with a turnaround averaging one and one half letters a month with anyone…

I’ll be honest and admit: I cannot imagine what life would be like with a television. I would have to go back to my pre-teen years to really appreciate what this gadget means, to the days when it was still relatively new and something of a miracle. I even remember, straining my mind slightly, the…

I am not a great one for having my photograph taken, for many years I tried to avoid it and only allowed those images required by law to be shot. From my childhood there are perhaps three photographs in existence: one of me as a baby looking across my mother’s shoulder into the camera; a…

It is strange, but no matter who we are and how our lives may be running, there is a depth to each and every person which remains hidden, which only surfaces in our own conscience now and then and reminds us of the darkness which can fill, even overtake the soul. I don’t think any…

I’m not very good at describing myself. Whenever we take time to put down into words who we think we are, it is always a mix of fiction, of wishes, of impressions we want to convey, perhaps to gain standing in the sight of another person, to impress them, to earn their respect, whether it…

One of the great things about being an Englishman is that everyone accepts our major talking point in any form of conversation or correspondence to be the weather. Admittedly I probably do not confirm with this picture, since I tend to write about almost anything other than the weather, but it is something which has…

I was struck by many of the things that you wrote, and spent a great deal of time both considering the words and their hidden meanings as well as aligning them with my impressions of life, my life as it has been so far, and what I had planned, hoped for or even demanded as…

Sunday morning, the church bells have finished ringing and the sound of birdsong takes their place. It is a stormy morning, promising torrents of rain later in the day, and that is no different to any other day we’ve had so far this last week. The local farmers are happy for the savings in water…