A biographical short on one of my most prized possessions and why I've hold of it for so long.
"The vast majority of our most precious childhood items tend not to survive into adulthood, though, because the most important things to us at the time tended to be rather simple and ephemeral."
A biographical short on the state of children's psychic health and witches.
"After delivering my paper there was only sporadic applause for my efforts and despite the convener asking if anyone had questions there were none. Once I got back to my hotel though the emails started to arrive."
a \‘shȯrt-rēd’\ piece
900 words about Simon Nicholson's 'Theory of Loose Parts' that asks if we are missing something in our interpretation of his ideas.
"Pretty collections of beads and shells, plastic shapes and buttons, stored neatly in nice wicker baskets or storage tubs, etc. do indeed constitute loose parts, there is a slight problem here. Becoming fixated with seeing ‘loose parts’ as just these small aesthetically pleasing things at the expense of others that might be less attractive to the adult eye really misses the major idea behind Nicholson’s original theory."
"When I was living and working in Sweden, a friend and fellow PhD student of mine with the Högskolan i Halmstad (the University of Halmstad) called Anders Nelson, now Dean of the University, told me a story about his young son Viktor."
In a piece that mixes a superhero, a punk rock star and Eric Morecambe we explore one tiny experience that reminds us how easy it is for adults to forget how earth shatteringly amazed we could be as children to discover something new and profound.
"Throughout most of the 1980s I lived in a house down a cul-de-sac. It was a quite short street with not too many parked cars on and, completely by chance, had three or four playworkers living down it – two of us in the same house."
Children clearly create their own special places for playing but sometimes they need help from local adults to make this work. It can be as simple as asking the right questions and knocking on the right doors and it need not cost the earth.
