When a Role Ends, Who Are You Then?
Recent events in UK politics have prompted me to reflect on something we rarely talk about openly: what happens to identity when a role ends suddenly. Not retirement.Not a planned transition.But the abrupt loss of a position that has shaped how someone understands themselves, and how others recognise them. In politics, we’re used to seeing […]
January: Writing, Research, and Speaking into the Moment
January marked a quieter but more concentrated phase of work for me. After a sustained period focused on ThriveSpan, I was able to step back from the book itself and turn my attention to the academic article that underpins it. That work matters to me. My writing on later life is not simply opinion or […]
Hamnet: What Remains, What Reaches Back
I went to see Hamnet at the cinema, with Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as Shakespeare. I had been warned partway through that it would be very sad, that I might want a handkerchief ready. But the tears didn’t come where people expect them to. We all know the child dies. That isn’t […]
In the Quiet Between Sentences: Reflections on Flesh
I finished Flesh this weekend. It’s just won the Booker Prize. What struck me wasn’t the subject matter so much as the way the book captures the interior life, the things we only understand with distance, the conversations that reveal more than the characters realise, and the moments that surface only when we slow down […]
Reflection on watching Die, My Love
I saw Die, My Love this week, a film about a woman whose life shifts after becoming a mother. She has moved somewhere new, with the intention of writing, of continuing the version of herself she had always imagined she was. And then the baby arrives, and her sense of self begins to unravel. The […]
Summer of Shifts
Summer of Shifts A Companion to Stepping Back Without Losing Yourself Some seasons change everything. Summer of Shifts traces one of mine: a summer of endings, rediscovery, and renewal. 📘 Free to download; this companion guide offers a glimpse into the lived experience behind Stepping Back Without Losing Yourself, exploring what it really feels like […]
Stepping Back Without Losing Yourself
Walking Gently Into What Matters Now After decades of striving, many of us reach a quiet turning point. We’ve achieved much, yet something inside whispers that it’s time for a different rhythm, one shaped less by pressure and more by presence. Stepping Back Without Losing Yourself is a deeply personal guide about what happens when […]
When Music Finds You Later in Life
In the wood, I’ve been listening to the sound of falling leaves, acorns landing with soft thuds, the sharp bark of deer, birds calling through the trees, and the low rustle of wind through branches. These are the sounds that usually fill my days there. But every so often, I’ve stepped back into the world […]
Finding Purpose in What Hurts
I hadn’t planned to see I Swear. A film about Tourette’s, full of shouting and swearing? I hesitated. But I watched the trailer, funny, tender, clearly more than a simple “feel-good” story, and sensed there was something deeper. So I booked a seat. It turned out to be one of those rare films that stay […]
ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now
A reflective philosophy for later life, ThriveSpan charts a more conscious path through ageing, where wellbeing, purpose, and reflection meet, and where life continues to unfold with depth, creativity, and renewal. As we move through midlife and beyond, many of us begin to ask deeper questions about how to live meaningfully. ThriveSpan offers a more […]