Auschwitz

Auschwitz. An hour by road from beautiful Kraków, just outside the town of Oświęcim from which it gets its name. But its dark and potent reality nestled behind a double electrified fence now inhabits my thoughts. An unremitting ache of heart and mind, a reminder of something terrible, too terrible to contemplate without doing something. […]

Marathon Day

The 7am train to London was packed with marathon runners. I found a seat and tried to read Ken Follett’s World without end, wondering if today would be ‘run without end’. At Clapham Junction, the guard announced, ‘Last chance to get off and escape.’ Amidst the excited chatter, I sat quietly; having not done this […]

Country Building in Southern Sudan

‘Where’s the city?’ I asked Emmanuel, the tall Sudanese young man who met me at Juba International Airport. ‘It’s not really a city, more a town.’ He smiled apologetically and pointed. ‘You can see it over there. Those are the government buildings.’ I couldn’t see much across the scrubby grassland, just a few low roofs. […]

Sri Lankan Tsunami

Sri Lanka hangs from the subcontinent like a pearl. It glistens in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, where white-tipped waves break on golden palm-fringed beaches. An island of deep green paddy fields and ponderous water buffalo, of noisy traffic-choked roads and speeding trishaws, wandering cows and stray dogs, lively coastal towns and fishermen […]