Nostalgia
Nostalgia for old, rundown coastal Sussex
Despite the seediness and threat of violence, Littlehampton was a place of neighbourly camaraderie, fondly evoked in Sally Bayley’s latest memoir
Has nostalgia become the Greeks’ national disease?
Imagine a new take on the Greek myth of Pygmalion. A love-shy artist makes a woman out of marble who…
I have been ambushed by the past
The other week I turned up for the village walking club’s Monday hike. A dawn meet. Two cars. A 90-minute…
Even in the Swinging Sixties, Ray Davies was feeling nostalgic
At first glance, nostalgia does not seem like a subject much suited to exploration via the medium of the pop…
New York: the fact – and fiction
New York At times I used to think the place was real. The New York of films, that is. The…
In grandmother’s treasure-chest
Juliet Nicolson examines women’s lives and changing fashions through a rich hoard of buttons for all occasions
N.M. Gwynne’s diary: Old names worth dropping
As I get older (and my 74th birthday is now close), I get deeper and deeper into nostalgia. I do…
Should Euston Arch be raised from the dead?
Yes William Cook Rejoice! Rejoice! Fifty-four years after its destruction, Euston Arch has returned to Euston. Well, after a…
My Brasenose college reunion was great (even if David Cameron didn’t turn up)
A couple of weeks ago I returned to my old Oxford college for a ‘gaudy’ — posh, Oxford-speak for a…
An alternative map of Britain: caves, canals, megaliths and ley lines
Picture the map of Britain. Its strangely cadaverous shape, blobs of population and routes between them seem as familiar as…
Why squash deserves a place in the Olympics
Thank god for the Commonwealth Games: at least they gave us a brief respite from football transfer stories. Instead of…
A secret from my African childhood has become a deeper mystery
About 55 years ago, when I was about ten, my younger brother Roger and I discovered a slave pit in…