Author Archives: lesleyjonesberry

Because Twitter is too brief

Posted on April 22, 2023 by lesleyjonesberry

David Bradley tweeted this morning, a reply to someone called Lewis Capaldi about a pop video.  This led me to watch the video – and cry – and feel myself a little connected with the modern world.  I don’t often … Continue reading →

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Life is of a mingled yarn

Posted on March 5, 2023 by lesleyjonesberry

Alls Well that Ends Well, Act IV Scene iii My best friend is working as a test knitter. This is when experienced craftspeople work through a new pattern to make sure it is accurate and comprehensible, and that the designer’s … Continue reading →

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Work in Progress

Posted on November 27, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

Sometimes it seems I am just beginning to learn how to live:  that, until now, I have muddled through by accident.  As a child I recall grown ups saying “if only I knew then what I know now…”, which I … Continue reading →

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Palimpsests

Posted on October 16, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

At my mum’s funeral, her best friend Joyce looked at my daughter and thought ‘that’s her, that’s Pat’. My daughter, then 18, was about the age mum had been when this friendship had kindled, and family likeness did the rest. … Continue reading →

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Solitude

Posted on September 11, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

Before I start, I must distinguish between solitude and loneliness. We never choose loneliness, which is painful and – what is the word? – ‘unhealthy’, meaning health as in wholeness; ‘unnatural’ in the sense that we are inherently, innately social … Continue reading →

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Listen

Posted on August 28, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

Hamlet is driven by a meeting of Hamlets: the prince and his father’s ghost. The melancholy, rootless ghost of the murdered king beseeches his son to leave his companions and follow. In the slightly truncated archaic Elizabethan language, the line … Continue reading →

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Recovery

Posted on July 22, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

The word that came to mind was recover.  And I hesitated, to become sure of what it means.  Recover can be read two ways:  to heal, or to replace a protective layer.  Difficult as things are, I don’t want the … Continue reading →

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Living with yourself

Posted on June 21, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

Presently (as my son would say), I live alone.  The closest I’ve come to this before was as a fledgling undergraduate.  Term times in a small self-contained College room, home still a safe refuge.   There followed many years of shared … Continue reading →

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I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be

Posted on June 5, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

I encountered T.S. Eliot when I was about 17;  Shakespeare I’d known a little longer.   Lines like these – allusions which I could actually catch (and Eliot was hugely allusive, especially in his earlier work) – played a part in the thrill of recognition I felt on first reading him.  I still, vividly,  remember starting to read the Four Quartets for the first time – at home, in the ‘front room’ as we called it (a whole socio-economic digression possible in that term.  I will resist). Continue reading →

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This House

Posted on May 30, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

At the start of the Zeffirelli film of La Traviata, the overture plays lushly on the soundtrack, while Violetta drifts through deserted rooms like Miss Havisham. At least she does in my head – I haven’t watched the film for … Continue reading →

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