by Katie Isham. Last weekend I went on holiday. Hold on, you might scream, we’re in lockdown. How did you wangle a holiday? Okay, you got me; I didn’t actually go on holiday, but I felt like I did for an hour. I embarked on a fifteen-minute drive (hedonistic,...
Experience: life as a single parent during covid
by Sarah Groszewski I became a single mother in August 2019, when I moved nearly 100 miles away from the life I’d built in London over the past 12 years, to start again in Southampton, when my marriage ended. The main thing that struck me was how much easier...
Campaign launched for single parent equality after research shows lockdown discriminatory
As children return to school this week, Ministers are facing calls to make being a single parent a protected characteristic under the Equality Act after a survey shows the pandemic restrictions heightened single parents’ experience of discrimination. In the UK today, a quarter of families are headed by a...
Swimmer gets a surprise when a seal joins him off Hampshire coast
by Sally Churchward. A keen swimmer from Hampshire found a new friend when taking a chilly dip at Lepe in the New Forest yesterday, when he was joined by a seal. Chris Balcombe has taken to wild swimming on a daily basis since the first lockdown but this is...
Heritage: The man with two gravestones
by Martin Brisland. Charles Smith lies in the graveyard of St John the Baptist church in North Baddesley. At that time, it wasn’t often a poor man had one, let alone two tombstones side by side. In the early 1800’s country gentlemen and wealthy merchants controlled society. As Justices...
Suburban Safari: The trees of Telegraph Woods
by Katie Isham. If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise. Or not. You’re sure to find trees. Don’t roll your eyes – I saw that. Of course there are trees, but over at Telegraph Woods there is a colony of beautiful, breathing,...
Portrait of a Poet: Andy Buchanan
by Anita Foxall. When poet Andy Buchanan first moved to Southampton, he thought this was a city with a lot of unrealised potential. Even with its large population, being a university city, many parks, and amazing venues, he felt there was still the opportunity to do more. And in...
Your artwork could help raise funds for charity
Could your artwork help your favourite good cause? Adults and children are being invited to create a poster representing what charity means to them, which will them be auctioned to raise money charity or community interest company (CIC). The artwork could be about charity in general or the organisation...
On being a mother to my trans daughter – how poems helped say what needed to be said
by Claire Dyer. There’s a poem in Yield called ‘Trans’. It imagines travellers from another planet who, on reaching Earth, see for themselves some of our ideas around gender stereotypes. There are two types of mother in this poem: and there are those they call mother who sometimes...
Suburban Safari: Rekindling the Peartree Passion
by Katie Isham. What better way to spend Valentine’s weekend than by rekindling your love for an old favourite? Sometimes in life we take for granted what we have. We take for granted the beauty we wake up to. We take for granted the sights we see every day....