Jeni Barnett

My house, growing up, was never silent. The Home Service ( Radio 4) blaring out. Radio 3’s classical music blaring out and jazz blaring out from my father’s quadrophonic speakers. Nobody talked in our house; parents screamed at each other. I took refuge in my room trying to dodge the cacophony. Homework was achieved, somehow. … Read more

Walking in the city is quite unlike walking in the countryside. When I worked on ‘Good Food Live’, my bosses didn’t want me running home after each show. We had prerecords and meetings, so they rented me a flat. Well I found the flat and they paid for it. A beautiful, riverside apartment with two … Read more

One of my first memories is lying in a cot looking up at big faces who were staring down at me and cooing. The cot was on the landing in the tenement block we lived in. Ha! The badge of honour that poverty gives you. My father fought for a flat from the council. He … Read more

My mother read with a torch under the bedclothes. Her sister, my Aunty Esther, knitted. The click clack of knitting needles accompanied the turning of pages. No Internet or smart phones people back then made their own entertainment, including knitting. And then my mother, laid down her books and swapped yarn for yarns. She fashioned … Read more

‘These are the good days’, according to a scientific discovery it is the five word sentence that can beat the blues. ‘Hedonic adaptation, also known as the hedonic treadmill, is the process by which people quickly return to a stable level of happiness after experiencing significant positive or negative events. This means that even after … Read more

It was a Sunday Sunday. I didn’t get dressed. I didn’t cook. I didn’t hoover. I didn’t garden. I didn’t wash the dishes. The dawter and her beau bought me the ‘Observer’ and I read an article on Bill Nighy who was asked to be Vogue’s agony uncle. That man of style makes me smile. … Read more

I taught Millie this morning, a clever, delightful 14 year old who is as sharp as a tack. I gave her a baton and asked her to conduct Barbara Streisand singing ‘Rainbow Connection’. 3/4 time and charming. We watched Sir John Barbirolli, then Alondra de la Parra conducting ‘Ravels Bolero’, which gave me the brainwave … Read more

Well worra week its been. The trees are falling to bits – to quote Laurie Lee – orange and crimson leaves all over the path. On Wednesday I had a blood transfusion, my bloody haemoglobin levels were so low that it was deemed necessary to hang two bags of vital fluid higher than my head … Read more

Pink sox, blue jeans, grey t-shirt and a purple sweater, my attire for the day at the seaside. I wear very old trainers that are falling apart but are the most comfortable of footlingwear. I drove through the falling leaves, arriving in Brighton by lunchtime. I parked the car in Hove actually. It took me … Read more

I had no idea my posts caused such consternation. I thought I was being funny. But people are telling me what a bad time I’m having. What a grizzly, awful place I’m in. That were I not staying alive I should really be dead. I’m ok, really I am, although everything is like looking at … Read more