Last week I took my son to start his first term at university. Saying goodbye to the first born was something I was not looking forward to. I wanted him to go, to begin his new life, but knew I’d miss him. He’s been bogged down with school subjects he was never that immersed in, and so to start studying the thing he loves most, politics, means that he is doing what he wants to do. It is such a bittersweet experience. Once upon a time I had an idea of writing a book about our travels together: Battles with My Boy. It was to be a travelogue of journeys across battlefields of Britain, and a commentary on our arguments. We used to argue all the time, about politics, education, how to make tea, where the biscuits have gone.
Category Archives: ideas
A Plague of Ideas
I’ve been reading up on the French Revolution – Hilary Mantel’s colossal A Place of Greater Safety, and Simon Schama’s Citizens. I’m quite obsessed with the character of Robespierre, and sense the germ of an idea for a book, although I have so many germs for books I could start a plague. Ideas, as we all know, are easy. Doing something with them is a different kettle of piranhas.
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