January

Sincerity Flags
If you're frustrated that the barbed nature of your witticisms aren't fully understood by their recipient, try Jill Ellis' helpful hint posted in the Home Truths message boards...

My Baby
Nancy Gedge reflects on the first year in the life of her baby Sam, who has Down's Syndrome

Enduring Ritual
Derek Parker commutes 90-odd miles so that George Rowe can cut his hair, as he has done for 40 years. That’s well over a thousand haircuts. Ken Cooper talked to them about their enduring friendship

Grudging Dad
Steward Ellet wonders if he’s the only parent who’d hated being one.

Single Footprints
Last week shoes, single and forlorn, cast aside at the edge of the road. This week, single footprints in the snow, as the Macclesifeld stone reveals...

Ballet to Bouquets
Mark Welford and Stephen Wicks are ex-ballet dancers who decided when they hung up their ballet slippers to open a flower shop. Judi Herman went along to meet them.

Train Talk
Hannah Condry's enthusiasm for meeting new people extends to the very un-English activity of talking to strangers on trains

Cake Sharing
Post-graduate physicist Tom Povey and his pals cluster around an unsuspecting sponge cake with Ian Peacock, as they debate the crucial issue of sharing cake fairly. Mike Hogan joins them with a few more theories

Teachers' Nicknames II
John Dacey complained last week that teachers' nicknames were dying out. Judging by the enormous response this week, a man couldn't be more wrong...

Twins Together
Philippa Budgen visits twins, Mary and Maggi who took forty odd years to become real friends

Sharky
Last week Peter Gibson's unnerving experience of teaching his former teacher encouraged Karl Lek from Beaumaris to tell a touching story about his old art teacher...

Teachers' Nicknames
Are teachers' nicknames dying out? John Dacey mourns the loss of one of life's innocent-ish pleasures...

Mr Aikido
Does the family who fight together stay together? Reporter, Lesley Hilton discovered the importance the martial art, Aikido, plays in the Jones' family life

Top of the Class
Teacher, Peter Gibson from Bristol recognised a face from the past in his new class...

Pulpits to Pints
In Tur Langton, in Leicestershire, the pub stands right opposite the church. Barbara Knight, the local vicar and Keith Bambury, the landlord of the Crown Inn, were game for an unconventional job swap

Stowaway
What is a girl to do! An unscheduled adventure on the high seas for Helen Wingate Marsh...

Mudflat Man
Steve Turner is an artist who lives in Chatham on the River Medway, and who has come to see the river as a living force in his life and art

Going Back
For Krystyna Makowiecka the past 12 months have not been so much the beginning of a new life, but the fulfilment of a long-held wish

Old Fashionssss
Emma and Claire are two women from Brighton who share a passion. In their spare time, they visit a certain kind of establishment they call Fashionssss Shops. They initiated Ian Peacock into the joys of this particular hobby

Vietnam Journey
hen Jacci Garside was 19, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. After battling ill health for 10 years, she was planning a future as a yoga teacher, when a holiday in Vietnam changed her life