Traffic in Vietnam is 'organised chaos'. Double white lines are ignored, traffic lights turning red are regarded as suggestions rather edicts, and the reminders of the carnage can be harrowing. I think in particular of a dead little girl and the roadside memorial that chills me every time I ride past

Hagen is indeed a tough town, a place where every shop window had been smashed not long before my arrival in retaliation for some offence to clan honour by a white man. Paybacks are fairly indiscriminate even when love is in the air, as I was soon to discover.

As one tyranny replaced another, Natalie Makarova was allowed to work with the immigration authorities processing refugees. She may have hoped to make some contact there or gather information that might help the family to get out of the country. Even the faintest possibility had to be followed through

It was perhaps providential that the Diocesan Book Society closed when it did, rather than see it forced to adapt and accommodate the modern world of book merchandising. It was nice to know that you could look at books for hours and no one seemed to care whether you bought anything

There was political correctness when I was young. We stood in the cinema when the King’s image appeared, for example, and I have watched the shape and character of PC change over time. I didn’t much like it when I was young, and like it no more today

Cynicism shares our lunch these days, yet trust survives. It must, for we are human and at that level we still see the shining light of its truth. There’s relief in that, since a tendency to trust others, according to psychologists, is a strong predictor of subjective well-being

All that remains to me are memories of the violets' scent, an abiding admiration for my grandmother's strength and courage, Sin Yung's utter joy in his work and, of course, Jack from the humpy by the creek who left no footprint on the earth that he trod