Mary Wakefield

‘But what must it be like for the fish?’ We’re talking about cormorants, Neil MacGregor and I, and the spectacular way they dive for food, when he pauses to consider the situation from the perspective of a fish. ‘I mean just think, there you are swimming along with lots of chums and then suddenly there’s

I am often extremely dismissive of people immersed in their smartphones. I tut at the mole-ish pedestrians who step out into the traffic, faces uplit and shocked when a car goes by. Last week, in a toddler playgroup, I actually hissed at some poor father. We were in the middle of ‘The Grand Old Duke

In celebration of its 110th birthday, I downloaded a Mills & Boon — The Greek Tycoon’s Blackmailed Mistress — and plan this coming weekend to settle down for an evening in the company of Dr Ella Smithson and Aristandros Xenakis, ‘an arrestingly handsome man… the epitome of lithe, masculine grace teamed with the high-voltage buzz

One morning a long time ago, when the Spectator offices were still in Bloomsbury, I hopped my bike up onto the kerb outside the new Pret a Manger on Theobalds Road, locked it to a post and went in. A man followed me, his face vacuum-packed with fury. He shouted: ‘No bikes on the PAVEMENT’,

Abusing children is one of the most terrible things men do. We all agree about that. And I think we’re all aware, as Sajid Javid announced on Monday, that it’s a growing problem. The same technology that allows millions to share videos of romping kittens has created an awful, expanding market for images of children

Abusing children is one of the most terrible things men do. We all agree about that. And I think we’re all aware, as Sajid Javid announced on Monday, that it’s a growing problem. The same technology that allows millions to share videos of romping kittens has created an awful, expanding market for images of children

They’re just kids! What’s your problem? This has become the default reaction of a whole raft of clever people to anyone who gets hot under the collar about the fashion for students banning things in universities: speakers, ideas, books. It was ever this way, they say, and besides, sometimes the kids are right. The little

Why do so many women feel such a strong urge to paint? It has been troubling me for years now. There are hundreds of thousands of us up and down the country, not pros but dedicated nonetheless. We pay for classes, huddle around artists we admire; we head to the coast on holiday to try,

Is it all right for the Muslim parents of children at British state schools to prevent their sons and daughters from being friends with non-Muslim kids? And is it sensible? These questions have been knocking around my head like a pair of trapped moths, unable to find a way out. Quite by coincidence and on

As I get older, and particularly after having a child, I feel myself unexpectedly drawn back to the countryside I grew up in. I nose about, late at night, on the websites of estate agents specialising in the north-east, hopping down the coast from barn conversion to barn conversion, pausing sometimes to inspect the odd

Spring has come to my local park in its usual way. First the magnolias, then the cherry blossom, then the little silver ampules which once held nitrous oxide scattered in the grass. On Sunday the kids appeared, not a gang exactly, more a swarm of teens, angry and unstable. A boy of about 14 raced

The baby, unbothered by diesel fumes, enjoys an outing down the main road through London N1. Each passing bus is marked by a fat and pointing finger: ‘There!’ On the way to our local park last Thursday, we had just begun to cross the road, pointing up at the green ‘walk’ man, when a scooter

Twelve minutes till the train. That had seemed like quite enough time as I approached the Virgin ticket machine. Two tickets, London King’s Cross to Durham: a 40-second job, then perhaps a coffee. I had felt, as I so often don’t, like a responsible mother and wife, comfortably in charge of logistics. Screen one set

We are becoming a nation of older mothers. The average age at which a woman has her first child is now 30, a fifth reach 45 without having a baby and the usual busybodies are in a flap. The government, which had anyway decided on compulsory relationship classes, thinks the answer lies in more of

One of the oddest things about the Oxfam sex scandal is how little we all seem to care. Even now, the talking heads on TV find it hard to summon much outrage. On Facebook and on Twitter, the Presidents Club exposé caused a far greater fuss. Much was made of the way the Club’s entitled

A Times investigation has uncovered the terrible fact that women and possibly young girls in Haiti have been exploited by the very people paid to keep them safe: the staff of Oxfam, which sucks up £300 million a year from us in public and private money.  It’s a shock — and it’s not. Under the

Last week, women working for the UN became the latest to join the #MeToo gang, and for all the eye-rolling silliness of some of #MeToo, I was pleased. The UN is in many ways a seedy closed shop. It spends zillions promoting gender equality worldwide but in practice it’s a very different story. The women