ONE OF THE MOST GRIMLY FUNNY POEMS OF the past century is Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse,” with its opening salvo about how our parents invariably mess us up. Larkin used a saltier word for “mess,

TOM! What are you doing here?” I stopped gazing at the empty space in the centre of the table, to throw myself into my fiancé’s arms. “You’re not supposed to be here until tonight,” I told him. “I dec

IN the rear of her stationary motor-taxi, a young milliner reached up a careful gloved hand to pat her black-felt cloche, snug on her smart, fair curls. Constance Smart had been sitting patiently for

JIM TEMPLEMAN smiled at Primrose across the table. “I’m sorry the way things worked out at lunch yesterday. “That agent of mine could talk your ear off but I guess he didn’t think to involve you in th

IRIS walked slowly to the front door of her Victorian villa in Fairley, a sleepy Sussex village. It had begun, she fumed silently – the “invasion” of her home. Of course, she’d been expecting it. Her

Selina Gardner’s love of antiques began early, with childhood memories of rummaging in dusty second-hand shops, setting up a stall selling porcelain figures and old books outside her home at six years