What inspires our love of history?

When I was aged 10, the farmers used to come round the schools to pick volunteers to work on the farms during the summer holidays, mainly to help bring in the harvest. The country was still building u

I grew up fascinated by all things spooky. Now my daughter and I have formed the perfect paranormal partnership!

Dear Simon, The history of Pitman shorthand told by Angeline Wilcox in the July edition of Best of British (Write on Time) evoked so many memories. I was amazed to learn that Isaac Pitman actually cre

We’ve got a really close-knit family. My relationship with my parents has always been really good. Now I hold up my parents as models of how to raise my own children. My children are really young at t

I must extend my huge thanks to Jon Winder for his excellent article Swings and Roundabouts (July). I am currently scribbling notes which I hope to turn into a memoir of my childhood, and one chapter

I don’t remember how I got into reading. Neither of my parents were big readers, and we didn’t have bookshelves at home – but I loved visiting the library. I could spend hours there, completely lost i