Category Archives: Postcards 2023

Unknown's avatar

Feeling the heat in the City

by

Who would want to saunter along hot pavements, in heavy feathers? Not these birds. These are City pigeons – they make plans, and they know places.

This last, humid week I came across two pigeon pool parties. The group photographed above were enjoying the relative cool of Postman’s Park, while just across the road, there was a more lofty party in the top tier of the fountain in the courtyard of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. There was much splashing and shaking of tail feathers.

I hope they enjoyed themselves, because there are peregrine falcons about, some thirty pairs of them in London. The closest pair to these pigeons was probably the pair who enjoy the view from the Tate Modern. If either of those deadly birds was in the skies above, I think it could have taken its pick from this party. The pigeons would not have stood a chance, not against a bolt from the blue with a diving speed of around two hundred miles per hour … way too fast for even the most athletic of these splashers to have grabbed their towels and flapped for cover.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

Unknown's avatar

Martha’s Rule will come to be

by

Today I have read the fantastic news that Martha’s Rule will be put in place across all hospitals in the National Health Service (NHS) in England. I am so delighted.

Thank you Merope Mills. It is awful that you had to lose your beautiful daughter to bring this change to pass, but your telling of her story, and of your story, during that dreadful time in hospital, have sounded like a bell in the noise of life. Now, thanks to your urgent insistence, Martha’s Rule will be there for us when we are in hospital and at our most vulnerable – a reminder, strengthening us for times where challenge is necessary.

May no more lives be lost needlessly.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

Unknown's avatar

Dyslexia – finding a way through ‘word blindness’

by

This large image is one of the collection displayed in the courtyard of St Bartholomew’s Hospital (Barts) in London. The hospital is celebrating its 900th year of service, and showcasing various moments from its history.

I never knew that Barts had any connection with dyslexia, and I had never heard of Maisie Holt, a phsycologist and neurologist, born on the Isle of Man in 1900 and educated in Cambridge and in London. It was she who apparently came up with the first effective treatment for what was then known as ‘word blindness’. Part of her treatment involved the children posting simple words through the door of the little house, then collecting them and reading them back. As they got the measure of the words their confidence began to return.

Maisie Holt died in 2003 on the Isle of Wight after a life working in education, pyschology and the arts. I also read that she helped in the selection of bomber and fighter pilots for the Royal Air Force in the Second World War.

Here is a link to her obituary on the Wootton Bridge Historical site. She sounds like quite a woman.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023