Month: June 2025
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By HILARY GAVIN LAST WEEK I posted a Facebook message for my friends to read after discovering that the author, former BBC journalist and MI6 self-confessed Cold war “asset”, Frederick Forsyth had sadly passed away earlier this month in his early eighties. Now, if you don’t recognise Freddie Forsyth by name, you’ve probably heard of…
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By HILARY GAVIN GOOGLE the psychological act of compulsively washing your hands and AI will tell you it’s “a simple cleansing ritual to a coping mechanism for managing guilt or anxiety”. As you’ve possibly gathered reading my blog by now, I love classical literature and, although I appreciate Charles Dickens isn’t everyone’s cup of tea,…
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By HILARY GAVIN STROLLING along Whitehall from Trafalgar Square to the Houses of Parliament in London and – I, for one – am always conscious of the centuries’ old stand-off between Britain’s Royalists and Westminster’s die-hard Parliamentarians. At one end of our capital’s thoroughfare – and seat of the UK Civil Service – stands its…
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By HILARY GAVIN I CAN’T speak for you, but I’ve been a fan of Thomas Hardy’s novels since studying them for my English Literature A-level in the late Seventies and early Eighties. As you know Hardy, himself, was most prolific as an author in late 19th-century Victorian Britain, however, for me, his rich descriptive prose…