What Mel Did

A Smile to Slay the Masses

Bronson and I would have been married 21 years tomorrow. It would also have been his 61st birthday. Six months ago, I started scribbling a personal memory for a magazine on “How We Met.” That scribble turned...

By Any Other Name

A Hard Habit To Break

I read somewhere that a good habit is as hard to break as a bad one. My morning habit is to rise about 4.30 am and faff for about 15 minutes before eventually leaving the house for a 2-hour walk. It helps I am a...

Busy Doing Nothing

My version of doing nothing is sitting down to read a book, perhaps whilst having a cup of peppermint or chai tea. I’ll then probably discard the book after some minutes to write down a few things I want to remember to...

What Mel Did - Black Magazine hair story

15-Year Old Afro-Caribbean School Girl Yearns For White TV Hair

This personal essay first appeared in Black Hair Magazine on 27 March 2018 and is reproduced this week on my blog as it is no longer under embargo. Thank you, again, BHM for picking up my reflections as a young girl and...

A Lady of Letters

My teenage daughter wrote about leaving her home

A writing prompt on the internet this week (‘Leaving Home’) reminded me of a piece my then teenage daughter Morgan wrote in 2013. She would have been aged around 17, and her father passed away for three...

The Nature of Forgiveness

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ~ Lewis B. Smedes A business con man I knew about seven years’ ago may have died. I haven’t enquired into the truth of it because...