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20 results
  • Article
  • Article

Doctors and the English seaside

| Jane Darcy

Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.

  • 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.

  • Article
  • Article

Indian botanicals and heritage wars

| Sita Reddy

Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Refugee health on a pound a day

| Vanesha Kirita SinghBenjamin Gilbert

Two refugees living a hand-to-mouth existence in the UK explain how trauma has affected their health, and how a little kindness is bringing them hope.

  • Article
  • Article

Coasting to catastrophe

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

In climate change, everything – and everyone – is connected. The watery process that will gradually cut off the Isle of Thanet from the British mainland has begun, and everyone in the UK needs to pay attention.

  • Article
  • Article

Would you like to buy a unicorn?

| Cassidy Phillips

The story behind why somebody tried to sell Henry Wellcome a unicorn head in 1928.

  • Article
  • Article

Religion and mental health

| Jamila PereiraMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

At a time of extreme distress, Jamila Pereira found that the faith she had relied on was failing her. Here she describes how she found other ways to begin healing and finding happiness.

  • Article
  • Article

What is structural violence?

| Laura BuiJessa Fairbrother

Structural violence is seemingly invisible. But its tentacles have invaded every part of many people’s lives, thoughts, experiences and expectations, shaping them in ways they don’t even realise.

  • Article
  • Article

A brief history of tattoos

| Amy Olson

The earliest evidence of tattoo art dates from 5000 BC, and the practice continues to hold meaning for many cultures around the world.

  • Article
  • Article

Maladaptive daydreaming, gender myths and me

| Laura Grace SimpkinsTanya Cooper

Can you daydream too much? Excessive daydreamer Laura Grace Simpkins reflects on studies into “maladaptive daydreaming” and asks why so few fellow dreamers seem to be men.

  • Article
  • Article

Autistic togetherness during lockdown

| Kate FoxColin Potsig

While lockdown has presented autistic people with greater challenges than life pre-COVID, many have found strength and comfort in the situation. Autistic writer and performer Kate Fox explains how.

  • Article
  • Article

Ways appear

| Chris North

While his sense of body shame meant the personal side of his life was unfulfilled, Chris’s career was rewarding. His own childhood experiences gave him profound empathy for the children he worked with.

  • Article
  • Article

Bubbles of history

| Alice BellKathleen Arundell

Since the 1960s, scientists have been able to study the air from past centuries by analysing particles in Arctic ice samples. But as the polar ice melts, the future of this research is changing.

  • Article
  • Article

This is a MOOD

| Kate WilkinsonLaurindo Feliciano

Adults might sometimes dismiss teenagers’ ‘moodiness’, but adolescence is a time of complex shifts in brain and body, which are intricately bound up with fluctuating feelings.

  • 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

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Finding the words to talk about emptiness

| Cassie DoneyJames Albon

Shored up by a diagnosis and medication, Cassie Doney tried to find out more about the profound feeling of emptiness they were experiencing. But research is thin on the ground.

  • Article
  • Article

Chasing spring

| Isabella KaminskiSteven Pocock

Isabella Kaminski reflects on a transformative journey that saw her cycle the length of the UK, tracking the first signs of spring. She explores what the changing seasons can tell us about ourselves and the climate crisis.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Our complicated love affair with light

| Lauren ColleeSteven Pocock

Sunlight is essential, but our relationship with artificial light is less clear cut. It expands what’s possible; it also obscures and polices. In this long read, Lauren Collee pits light against night, and reveals the shady places in between.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

’No you’re not’ – a portrait of autistic women

| Rosie Barnes

In this sensitive series of portraits and interviews, photographer Rosie Barnes acknowledges the voices and experiences of autistic women.