Stories

We tell stories about health and human experience. Our words and pictures make connections, provoke new thinking and share lived experiences. You can pitch a story to us.

A digital illustration of three people writing in their journals in isolation. Surrounding them are the thought bubbles of the writers, each depicting topics and experiences relating to living in lockdown. The bubbles contain a NHS worker in full PPE, empty supermarket shelves, queuing at markers on the street to denote social distance and people living in isolation.
  • Article

Collecting pandemic stories

Find out how personal notebook jottings from two flatmates became ‘Journals of a Pandemic’, a comprehensive diary-keeping project encompassing dozens of writers from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Person holding a large red love heart, smiling.
  • Comic

Do what feels good for you

What makes you feel good?

Part of Weewaaz

Mix media artwork made up of archive photographs and cut out textured elements elements. The image shows a black and white sepia toned photograph of a group of 13 young children, sitting and standing for a posed group photo. The children were all affected by the thalidomide scandal and so some have short arms, some have short legs, and some have both. The group is smiling to the camera. Behind the group, the background is made up radiating shards of school related book covers and paper. The effect is to create a rising sun pattern appearing from behind them. The shards are varied in colour, blues, pinks, yellows, orange and greens. Some are textured book covers with fragments of text, others are textured paper with stitching, others are gridded graph paper.
  • Serial
Part4

Disability, education and prejudice

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.

Part of Voices of thalidomide

Photograph of a blonde woman with black clothing looking through a window, captured from outside. The woman is sitting on a wooden chair with her arms crossed at the wrists with her gaze towards the top right of the frame.
  • Book extract

Surviving the storm of postnatal depression

Emma Jane Unsworth lays bare the despair of postnatal depression and shares her route to recovery.

Part of Inside Our Books

Mix media artwork made up of archive photographs and painted elements. The image shows a black and white photograph of a mother and daughter holding hands, walking along. They have been cut out from the background of the original photograph. The young girl is holding a guinea pig to her chest with her right hand and holding her mother's hand with her left. Her legs and feet in shoes are strapped into short prosthetic legs which also have a shoes on the feet. The mother is looking down at her daughter's feet, helping her to walk. In the distance is a mountain range made up of a torn yellowing piece of paper. To the left is a three dimensional blue flag with the words, 'Safe Sedation DISTAVAL' written on it. From the base of the flag is a thin blue line the same colour as the flag, which winds its was towards the mother and daughter. As is approach it gets broader and abruptly changes colour to a light green. The broad line travels under the feet of the figures and then away into the distance behind them and to the right. The Lins is draw in paint and the texture of the paint can be seen.
  • Serial
Part3

Adapting to life as a thalidomide survivor

Growing up as a thalidomide survivor meant coping with all the usual challenges of childhood and adolescence, while having to fit into a world designed for the able-bodied.

Part of Voices of thalidomide

How to belong

What does it mean to belong? In this series of six essays, Tanya Perdikou makes sense of belonging and why it matters.

Books

Get stuck into one of our books, and explore the complexities of the human condition.

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Photograph of a poster advertising the play 'He was born gay' featuring bold text in red and black on a beige background. The poster has been photographed resting just above a grey concrete textured background.
  • In pictures

Gay men in London, from persecution to Pride

Ben Gazur’s whistle-stop tour of the history of gay men in London takes us from 14th-century persecution to modern Pride events.

Lesley Imgart
  • Comic

I'd really like to go to a supermarket

What simple pleasures are you looking at anew?

Part of Pandemic journal

Mix media artwork made up of archive photographs and painted elements. The image shows a sepia toned photograph of a woman from the waist up sitting outside a house with a small baby in her left arm, feeding it with a bottle in her right hand. She is wearing a white sleeveless blouse, a pearl-like necklace and is looking to camera. This photographic print has been cut into a circle a translucent circular sheet placed on top. The two are stitched together with a double row of stitches following the circles. The thread is an orange colour. In a ring around the outside of these two circles is another photograph of a crowd scene from the 1960 where almost everyone has their backs to the camera. Outside of the ring on the right hand side is an area of light green paint. The texture of the brush strokes can be seen. On the right is the texture of archive paper with the words,'THEY DONT CARE' stamped on in.
  • Serial
Part2

Thalidomide babies

In a time without scans or antenatal tests, neither medical staff nor parents were prepared for the damage to the foetus caused by the thalidomide drug.

Part of Voices of thalidomide

Photograph of the pavement and signage infant of a car park and leisure centre. On the pavement dressed in a hi-vis jacket and a face covering, a man is setting up a freestanding roadsign with the words 'Vaccination Centre this way' written on it. To his right is the large sign to the leisure centre with the words 'Hyde' and 'Hyde Leisure Pool' displayed. In the background is the carpark where temporary marquees have been erected.
  • Article

Vaccinating a community, saving lives

Doctor Jane Harvey always goes the extra mile to care for her patients, and in recent months that’s extended to huge efforts to save lives with her coronavirus vaccination push.

Drawing of a single tree without leaves in the foreground with a row of houses in the background.
  • Comic

You never know how you'll feel

What changes have you noticed around you?

Part of Pandemic journal

Mix media artwork made up of archive photographs and painted elements. The image shows a sepia toned photograph of a woman from the waist up standing with one arm resting on the handrail of a seaside walkway. In the distance is the horizon line of the sea meeting the sky and small distant figures on the sunlit sandy beach. The woman is smiling to the camera in a relaxed manner, her hair and skirt being blown by the wind. She is wearing a white sleeveless blouse. Behind her to the right the background of the photograph has been painted over with bright yellow textured paint above the handrail and light orange below. To the left of the image the beach scene is cut into strips and physically latticed into another archive photograph of an advert for a drug. The words 'Distaval' can be made out at the top and at the bottom the words, 'safe sedation' and 'sounder sleep'. Resting on top of the advert are 3 white tablets in a transparent packet.
  • Serial
Part1

Thalidomide, a bitter pill

Hear from some of the women who took the drug thalidomide over sixty years ago about the fear, isolation and grief that they experienced as the appalling pharmaceutical scandal unfolded around them.

Part of Voices of thalidomide

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