Columns written by The Press newspaper's features columnists

Passport to a rotten old picture

12:31pm Tuesday 30th April 2013

“MUM, can I please have another £5?” I suspected my daughter wouldn’t be satisfied with the set of pictures she had just ordered from the instant photo booth. She didn’t just dislike them, but recoiled in horror when they slid out of the machine.

NHS changes may worsen health postcode lottery

9:52am Tuesday 30th April 2013

The National Health Service should be just that – a national health service – providing equal access to treatment, regardless of where the patient lives.

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Irresponsible riders are driving me mad

12:35pm Monday 29th April 2013

The leaves are bursting through on our hedgerows, there’s the odd gleam of sun, the nights are lighter, lily white legs are being aired by some brave I-don't-care-how-stupid-I-look souls as they don last year’s shorts. And the motor cycling fraternity is out in force on our country lanes and roads.

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Men have to learn meaning of ‘no’

12:51pm Friday 26th April 2013

WHEN does ‘no’ mean ‘yes’? When it’s said by a woman. It seems the moment a woman starts talking about anything sexual, she is not to be believed if she so much as hints she may not be up for it.

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No news would be bad news for me

9:35am Thursday 25th April 2013

IS NEWS bad for you? This might seem an odd question to read in a newspaper column – stranger still coming from someone who is a bit of a news junkie.

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Monsters made by shock of war

9:56am Tuesday 23rd April 2013

IT SOUNDS like the world’s worst dinner party line-up, but apparently it’s true. At the same time, a century ago, the same city was home to Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky, the future Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia and Sigmund Freud.

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I do love a letter, but who has the time?

9:28am Tuesday 23rd April 2013

MY NEIGHBOUR Betty is always writing letters. When I pop over to her house, I often find her at the kitchen table penning the latest news to her nieces in America or her sister-in-law in South Africa.

The write way of signing with style

11:56am Monday 22nd April 2013

THE pen, they used to say, was mightier than the sword. But are the keyboard and the touch screen now mightier than the pen?

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Time to open up our closed roads

9:46am Friday 19th April 2013

THE old analogy about how the traffic flows better when the lights aren’t working is often used as an illustrative point by those who wish to see less meddling from the Government or council in our day-to-day lives.

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History makers will have the last word

8:29am Thursday 18th April 2013

I HAVE decided to turn my back on yesterday’s big event. Enough words have already been spent on She Who Needs No Naming.

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It’s too soon to judge Margaret Thatcher's legacy

9:37am Tuesday 16th April 2013

THE local TV news showed some old home movie shots of Bradford the other night. I thought the wool city, stuck here in a time warp rather than the textile variety, looked brighter and busier than it does now; indeed, in better shape than it has for many a year.

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File frenzy

9:34am Tuesday 16th April 2013

Last week my 14-year-old daughter asked me to add something to my supermarket shopping list. “I’d like a ring binder file, for my school work,” she said.

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Attlee v Thatcher

11:16am Monday 15th April 2013

I’M not one of those who’s been doing handstands and dancing in the streets at the demise of Maggie Thatcher. How unseemly is that?

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Dead worrying

10:04am Friday 12th April 2013

I DON’T ‘do’ gore. Not the on-screen kind, anyway. I can yank the giblets out of a chicken, but that’s for making stock, not offering up for sacrifice. Anything in HD with spurting arteries has me hiding behind a cushion, so the daughter’s obsession with zombies is proving divisive.

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Baroness Thatcher was an inspiration to me

7:47am Friday 12th April 2013

It will come as no surprise to readers that the start of my column this week will focus on the life of a groundbreaking lady.

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