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  • Article

The hidden history of homesickness

Gail Tolley delves into the history of homesickness and discovers that its rich past holds a clue to how we view the experience today.

  • Article

We need less ‘sickle cell warriors’ and more allies

Rejecting the epithet “warrior”, Cheryl Telfer describes the pervasive effect sickle cell disease has on her life, and calls for more people to donate blood to help sicklers.

  • Article

Chasing spring

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.

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Images

  • Nepal; agriculture in the Khumbu, 1986. Growing potatoes at Phortse (altitude 4000 metres). At this altitude, in breathtaking but inhospitable terrain, potatoes are the principle crop of the Sherpas. Phortse is one of the highest permanent village settlements on the journey to Sagarmatha (Mount Everest).
  • Pascal's experiment in the Puy de Dôme to test the relation between atmospheric pressure and altitude. Oil painting by Ernest Board.
  • Nepal; Sherpa children of the Khumbu, 1986. Two smiling children share an amusing moment in the village of Phakding (altitude 3000 metres). Their clothing highlights the poverty of some of the Sherpa families.
  • Nepal; town life in the Khumbu, 1986. As N0022572C. Namche Bazar (altitude 3446 metres) under snow. The climate in the Khumbu can be harsh and unpredictable. The tents in the foreground belong to a European mountaineering expedition. The yaks are unperturbed.
  • Nepal; agriculture in the Khumbu, 1986. As N0022569C, different aspect. Pangboche (altitude 4200 metres), a view of the village with its walled, terraced fields. The houses are built with their backs to the mountain. Only the fronts have windows and doors.
  • Nepal; agriculture in the Khumbu, 1986. Pangboche (altitude 4200 metres), showing the tiny, walled terraced fields on which Sherpas cultivate their staple crops (potatoes, barley, wheat). Potatoes are rarely grown beyond 4000 metres but barley is grown at higher altitudes. Scattered juniper and birch trees share this terrain with sub-alpine grasses. Few people live permanently beyond this village amid the last scattered trees below the treeline.
  • Nepal; agriculture and subsistence in the Khumbu, 1986. Area as N0022565. Farmland on the lower slopes of the Himalayas (altitude 2900 metres). Sherpas are Buddhists and their houses are surrounded with prayer sticks flying cloth flags. A sherpa group with yaks travel along
  • Nepal; foot transport in the Khumbu, 1986. Two young Sherpas carry planks of wood up to the village of Kunde (altitude 3600 metres). Wearing boots which are barely held together and cast-off clothing from Western trekkers, these men transport building materials up a precipitous track.
  • The components of an astrolabe (a medieval instrument, now replaced by the sextant, that was once used to determine the altitude of the sun or other celestial bodies); signed "HOC FACET [SIC] VIVES" an inscribed "DON. COLVBINUS. DE. ALFIANO. MONACUS. VALLIS. VMBROSE. VTEBATUR. MD.LXXII" meaning Don Columbino de Alfiano, Monk of Vallombrosa [in Tuscany, where there was a famous monastry] used [this], 1572.
  • A woman seated in a chamber having her exceptionally high wig (which towers above her head in an oval form, and is flanked by parallel horizontal curls) dressed by a French hair-dresser who stands on the top of a step-ladder; the woman's husband, a naval officer, is holding a sextant to his eye to ascertain the altitude of the adornment. Engraving, 1771.
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