
My Mother at 21
Browsing through my Instagram a few months ago, I saw a message from a young woman saying she had found some photos of my mother, taken by her father in the 60’s. I...
Browsing through my Instagram a few months ago, I saw a message from a young woman saying she had found some photos of my mother, taken by her father in the 60’s. I...
This picture was taken when I was 15. It sits propped against the wall on a corduroy covered bench at the end of my kitchen, alongside other stuff including a photo of me...
I’m staying with my sister Esther in Suffolk. She has a photo of our mum sellotaped to a cupboard door and I was struck by how alike we look. My mum was hard...
My mother was scornful of Mother’s Day. I was ashamed that I secretly liked the idea of it but I kept my feelings hidden. Our family attitude was born out of being untraditional:...
There is a huge Leigh Bowery exhibition just opened at Tate Modern. It is hard for anyone to capture the brilliance and originality of Leigh – such was his uncategorizable and unquantifiable talent,...
I first met Marianne Faithful when I was 20. I was invited with two friends to a dinner party on a Chelsea Embankment houseboat where she was the honoured guest. I don’t remember...
I found an old diary once with a list of new year’s wishes. At the top of the page it said ‘No more problems with my Italian backers.’ Not long after writing the...
When I was 6 my mother invited a spiritual guru to come over to our flat in Tunbridge Wells. There was a lot of excitement about it among the grownups and my younger sister Esther and...
This is a photograph of me and my dad. I wish it wasn’t so blurry, but it is immediately recognisably me and him. Funny to think of dad in a yellow jumper. I...
My early memories of getting to know my father took place mostly in restaurants. As a tiny child I remember mum taking my sister Esther and I to meet him in Marine Ices...
When I was a child and living in Marrakech, my sister Esther and I entertained ourselves with obsessions about certain words. We settled on Hideous and Kinky as the favourites. We would chant them,...