A compendium of musical delights by Alan and Margaret Ashworth
I HAVE already described here the simple ceremony which marked my marriage to Margaret 32 years ago. My first wedding was a more lavish affair. Although she had been brought up in … Continue readingMiracle of the wedding wine
AMONG the books I have most enjoyed recently is Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, a collection of magazine essays by the American New Journalism pioneer Gay Talese. The title piece beautifully … Continue readingThe Witches of Femail
HALF a century has passed since I took my driving test but I still remember it clearly, in stark contrast to what I might or might not have done in … Continue readingConfessions of a drunken driver
A PARAGRAPH in the Times sports pages last week about the ‘British’ tennis star Emma Raducanu and the reasons for her slide down the rankings finally acknowledged what has been whispered about … Continue readingTennis dads from hell
To many readers, PG Wodehouse is synonymous with Jeeves and Wooster but little else (apart from maybe the Blandings books). However there are countless gems to be mined among the … Continue readingBeyond Jeeves and Wooster: PG Wodehouse’s golf stories
IF the names Les Kellett, Jackie Pallo, Mick McManus and Kendo Nagasaki mean anything to you, it’s a fair bet that you used to spend your late Saturday afternoons plonked … Continue readingGreetings, grapple fans
LIKE most of us born in the mid-20th century, I was weaned largely on cigarette smoke. My parents and grandparents were partial to a regular gasper and it seemed that everywhere … Continue readingConfessions of a smoker
ONE of the Monty Python sketches that I used to find terribly amusing involves Terry Jones’s character Mr Chigger turning up for a flying lesson and finding the instructor Mr … Continue readingMy wife the pilot
MY lifelong fondness for licensed premises possibly derives from the fact that my home town was named after a pub. Nelson, Lancashire, did not exist until the mid-19th century. The area … Continue readingDown at the club
MEMOIRS of a grim childhood in working-class Dundee are hardly my normal reading matter. However a raft of enthusiastic reviews led me to invest in Toy Fights: A Boyhood by Don Paterson. … Continue readingThere was a young man from Dundee . . .