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23 results
  • Article
  • Article

To write in golden photographs

| Rachel GennSally Anne Wickenden

When Rachel Genn’s brother disappeared, a newspaper article led the family to his bedside. But the accident he’d barely survived was not to be the last tragedy in his life.

  • Article
  • Article

Political brilliance and the power of self-promotion

| Anna Faherty

How do you convince people you’re exceptional? Meet the ultimate self-styled genius.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Portraits, from a distance

| Michelle Sank

Join photographer Michelle Sank on her daily walk around Exeter. Strength, frustration, resilience and eccentricity all show in these candid images portraying life under the constraints of coronavirus lockdown.

  • Article
  • Article

Dying to be in nature

| Matthew PonsfordAndy Merritt

The modern funeral business is one that uses up precious resources and pollutes the planet. But you can make sure it’s only your memory that leaves its mark with these new and natural ways to leave this earth.

  • Article
  • Article

The cook who became a pariah

| Anna Faherty

New York, 1907. Mary Mallon spreads infection, unaware that her name will one day become synonymous with typhoid.

  • Article
  • Article

Ancestry, privacy and the family tree

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

Wanting to find out more about her Jamaican grandfather, Tanya Perdikou contemplates DNA testing. But first she has to consider the potential impact of unexpected results.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Generation portraits

| Julian Germain

Photographer Julian Germain’s major project focusing on portraits of multi-generational families came to a sudden halt during the various Covid-19 lockdowns. Here families celebrate coming together again in words and images.

  • Article
  • Article

How I escaped my anxiety and depression through architecture and poetry

| Rhael ‘LionHeart’ CapeThomas S G Farnetti

Social anxiety led him to introversion and silence. The brutalist architecture of London’s Barbican Estate inspired his liberation in poetry.

  • Article
  • Article

Intertwined with air

| Siwakorn OdochaoJennifer Katanyoutanant

Siwakorn Odochao details his people’s way of perceiving trees and humans as intimately connected, and draws on the air as the element that weaves between them. Through the co-dependency of humans and trees to prepare the air for each other, he elaborates on the relationship between air, health and environment.

  • Article
  • Article

Little feet on Pett Level Beach

| Penny Pepper

Poet and author Penny Pepper has vivid memories of childhood beach trips when her father was still alive, enthusiastically encouraging her curiosity and love of nature.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

My body, my hair

| Farah EssetEden Rickson

To depilate or not to depilate? Farah Esset and Eden Rickson share a collection of personal pictures and stories that explore the intimate interplay between body hair and identity.

  • Article
  • Article

Disability, education and prejudice

| Ruth BlueHollie Chastain

In the 1960s and 1970s, thalidomide survivors had to fight for a proper education. If they weren’t brought up in institutions, they were often viewed as objects of curiosity, encountering verbal and sometimes physical abuse, both at school and in the world beyond.

  • Article
  • Article

When parenting brings a paradigm shift

| Carol NahraKathleen Arundell

There were no indications during her pregnancy that Carol Nahra’s son would have severe, life-threatening disabilities. Here she describes the stages on her journey from shock to love and beyond.

  • Article
  • Article

Fleeing fear, defying prejudice

| Sedra Al-Yousef

As teenage refugee Sedra Al-Yousef grappled with rebuilding her life and education in another country, at the same time she used compassion and humanity to demolish populist anti-refugee myths.

  • Article
  • Article

Restoring disorder to ‘The Book of Disquiet’

| Helen Babbs

Printer Tim Hopkins explains what making an extraordinary new edition of Fernando Pessoa’s book revealed about both the text and the mind.

  • Article
  • Article

Nurturing my autistic, gender-questioning child

| Jude LaxJack Lax

As mother of an autistic child who questions her gender, Jude Lax describes cherishing her growing daughter as she explores her identity.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the minds of A R Hopwood and Honor Beddard

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

The curators of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ reveal the stories behind the exhibits, and the intriguing truths the show confronts us with.

  • Article
  • Article

Would you like to buy a dinosaur?

| Ross MacFarlane

Two remarkable letters and a drawing of a plesiosaur by Mary Anning offer a tantalising portal into the exciting world of fossil hunting and discovery of the 1800s.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

“I’ve never talked to anybody about this before”

Douglas is furious. He’s at crisis point and needs help. Read the first of his two sessions with psychoanalyst Susie Orbach.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

My important, ridiculous nose

| A L Kennedy

The nose is a much-maligned appendage, but it’s a powerful organ capable of invoking powerful emotions from past memories and sexual attraction.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Obesity and Britain’s boys

| Abbie Trayler-Smith

Six young men and six experiences of being overweight. Find out how these boys and their loved ones feel about this stigmatising issue.

  • Article
  • Article

The unexpected parallels between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wellcome Collection

| Russell Dornan

With the news of a sequel in development, Russell Dornan explores parallels between ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and Wellcome Collection.

  • Article
  • Article

The life and death of Tamagotchi and the virtual pet

| Jenna Jovi

Discover how the 1990s craze for Tamagotchis became a flood of robotic and virtual pets, sending their owners on an emotional rollercoaster ride.