There is something rather reassuring about arriving at a large Scout camp. Before you have spoken to anyone, before you have seen the programme or unfolded a map, you know roughly what you will find. Leaders wrestling with logistics. Young people laughing, building, exploring and making new friends. Somewhere, someone looking for a missing mallet….
Buckle up. This is an essay, rather than a short read… The Scarf Every year on 1 August I open a drawer containing rather more Scout scarves than any sensible person ought to own and spend a few moments deciding which one to wear. It is never quite as straightforward a decision as it sounds….
Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of visiting WINGS, and I drove home feeling reminded why events like this matter so much. For those who do not know it, WINGS is one of the UK’s largest international Scout and Guide camps. Every few years it brings together thousands of young people from across Britain and…
I have spent a good part of my working life travelling, working with people from other countries and, from time to time, trying to explain Britain to them. That is not always easy. The country we describe abroad is often tidier than the one in which we actually live. We talk about parliamentary democracy, ancient…
One of the unexpected pleasures of leading Cats Protection has been discovering just how much there is still to learn. People sometimes assume that when someone becomes the Chief Executive of a charity, they somehow become an expert overnight in whatever that organisation exists to do. The reality is rather different. I arrived with many…
Today was the day Heartstopper Forever dropped on Netflix, so Mark and I sat down this evening to watch it, having loved the television series from the beginning.We came away feeling exactly as we hoped we would: happy. Yes, the critics are probably right that the film’s tighter running time means some of the wider…
There are evenings when you know, almost from the opening minutes, that you are listening to someone whose ideas will stay with you for a long time. The St George’s House Annual Lecture, delivered this year by Lord Jonathan Sumption, was one of those occasions. It was a privilege to be there. Lord Sumption hardly…
On the wall of my study hangs an old cutting from the Lichfield Mercury, dated 11 November 1988. The headline reads: “Breaking out!” The page is yellowed now, the photographs are grainy and the print has faded. But it remains one of the things on my wall that means the most to me. The article…
I don’t often write directly about local political issues. When I do, I think it is important to be clear that these are my own personal reflections as an Oxfordshire resident. They do not represent the views of any organisation I lead or support, nor of any of the civic offices I am privileged to…
On the 250th anniversary of American independence Happy 250th birthday, America. It takes a certain confidence to declare independence from the world’s most powerful empire in 1776. It takes even more confidence to spend the next two and a half centuries explaining to everyone else why you were right. As someone with both British and…
