Articles

When the lockdown started, the words I often heard people using were “scary” and “frightening”. A few weeks later the word pinging around in my inbox was “bizarre”. Currently it looks like “the new normal” might be the phrase. I’m having a good lockdown. My current...

Here’s a story for children all about that within us which cannot be destroyed. It tells of a girl whose hair cannot be cut. Although creating havoc in her family and early relationships, this strangely resilient (and eventually very long!) hair proves to be her...

When I was a child my mother would buy a big Christmas tree every December and we’d all decorate it with baubles, tinsel and fairy lights. One Christmas eve, aged fourteen years old, I took a walk outside in the misty London streets. It was so late that there was...

I’m preparing a Christmas performance of stories for children and have been digging into the archive of stories that I told at my children’s bedside when they were young. They are now 11 and 13 years old, and a very, very long way from having Dad tell them a story at...

Here's a story about aligning to our own hidden depths. The whale loomed up out of the heaving water. “Are you looking for me?” she asked. The fisherman stammered. “No! I'm not looking for you!” He just wanted her to go away and leave him alone. “Strange...” said the...

Boy, what happened to Christmas? Every year it seems to be more and more about stuff. Here’s a little antidote, a story for children about how life’s real treasure is to be found elsewhere. This is one of the stories that I told my kids when they were little, and...

 When we became parents, my wife Sundara and I were clear that we wanted to minimise our kids’ exposure to the screens which, back in 2005, were just beginning to explode in number and type. Before our eldest was of school age we moved near a well established Steiner...

What’s your favourite thing of all? Here’s a sweet little story for young children, all about the most important things in life. I told this story to my daughter when she was four years old and it’s all about a little girl whose mummy goes off to buy her ice-cream....

Does your child have a special toy? The sort that they can't be separated from? My son Luke had one of those when he was about three. He was simply called "Teddy" and he and Luke went everywhere together. One afternoon something happened with Luke and me and Teddy...

I’ve heard the advise “Follow your heart” from a wide range of sources. Even from people who I didn’t expect say such things, as well as from movies and other pop-culture sources. But what exactly does it mean? Continue Reading Why Follow Your Heart?

When you were a child, did you ever get completely absorbed in a book? The earliest memory I have of doing this occurred on a long, hot, lazy summer holiday with my family. My reading ability had only just reached the level where I could read with ease for hours on...

I read a story recently about how big firms who had not considered it important to improve their environmental record were having trouble hiring top graduates, because those bright, awake young people didn't want to work in such places. This is the cohort that were at...