I walked across the glory of Trafalgar Square, marvelling anew at the magnificence of Nelson’s Column, reminding us that his navy established the mastery of the seas which was responsible for much of the Empire. Now, in South Sudan, tribal warfare is again worrying; this was something the Empire was supposed to save Africa from. The day before, at a church lunch for a visiting Archbishop from Sudan, a very brave man, he told me how much of his time is now spent travelling una

Writing now in my lovely orchard, looking across to a great herd of young dairy cows, beautifully black and white against the grass. The grass is long and wet with dew around my feet, and a watery sun shines through my champion—or supposed to be champion—apple tree. I planted it 20 years ago, the famous Cox’s Orange Pippin. It is now a towering 30 feet in this famously fertile vale where I’m lucky to live, but sadly this year there are only two or three apples on it. It has b

The city with a spire that haunts the landscape. As we drive over the Plain, that great expanse of high grassland now mostly given over to birds and the Army, we see the spire hanging low on the horizon. As we approach, we pass the great mound of Old Sarum, where Eleanor of Aquitaine was imprisoned in the castle. The castle itself was eventually destroyed, but the mound remains, huge and brooding over the ancient city below. We walked along the river bank, long ago channelled

As this endless summer draws to its close, with its dream of endless gardening and country life, the word aestivation – sleeping through the summer – takes me back to my youth in Cambridge. It was a favourite word of my great teacher Philip Hall, friend of Keynes and tutor to Turing, who used to say that aestivation is what Cambridge does in summer. Another favourite word of his was eremitic – hermit-like. He was himself famous for this, never attending the grand High Table i

We stayed in my old college, Jesus College, first dedicated to St Radegund, the medieval French saint from Poitiers, and then, some 500 years later, to Jesus. It is famous for its chapel, begun in the 12th century and later restored by Pugin, William Morris and Burne-Jones: a grand ghost of a glorious past. Walking into First Court, I remembered arriving there for the first time, lugging an enormous suitcase from the station and then along the long entrance passage known as t

My day began early, writing a fundraising letter for a church in a nearby village. It is a Grade I listed building, nearly a thousand years old, but has more or less been abandoned by the village it once served. A few friends and I are trying to keep it going. I am still very involved with my own church. The previous day I had read a tremendous passage from St Paul to a packed congregation at the farewell service for a much-loved vicar. My acting training is useful on such oc

Today I said to myself that I would rest completely, do absolutely nothing. It reminded me of the great actor (always known simply as Ian) whom I once met in his dressing room at the National Theatre, taken there by a mutual friend. We reached it through a strange, ugly concrete labyrinth which echoed, as he remarked rather waspishly, with "the cries of failed actors."

Travelling up to London to raise funds for my beloved thousand year old church, I arrived in the city to find myself in a huge, apparently empty, glistening white building, looking down on the ruins of a Roman wall and, amazingly, a wild flower garden. As I waited on the 11th floor I could help myself to coffee and then get out onto a balcony with plenty of greenery.

We arrived in the foothills of the Cairngorm mountains with the newly emerged leaves of the copper beeches in their translucent glory and the birches in their lovely fresh green. There were snow patches on the hills and golden daffodils welcomed us as we passed the mysteriously named Blacklunans hamlet and reached our Norwegian log cabin, ideally built to withstand the hard winters and massive snowfalls. In the first week we recovered from the long drive with magic walks dow

The journey so often made - the first time by boat in 1948, two weeks to Cape Town, flying fish on the deck, adults playing quoits or pounding endlessly around the ship

After two successful book launches — one in the Wiltshire village where I live and another at Andrew Edmunds in Soho — I filmed myself reading a couple of poems and posted them on my Facebook author page before flying to South Africa for my annual visit. I grew up in Johannesburg in the 1950s. It has changed enormously since then, in many ways for the better, though the continuing poverty, corruption and crime remain troubling. Yet South Africa is still magnificent. Racial te

KwaZulu-Natal and Home Back in England from the glories of KwaZulu-Natal, two memories linger most vividly: a quiet Methodist service in a small chapel, and the exuberant pottery of the world-famous Ardmore Ceramic Art, founded some forty years ago to support local, underprivileged artists. The result has been a truly African outpouring of creativity. Both chapel and studio sit amid lush pasture, grassy hills and ancient forests rich in wildlife: parrots, cuckoos, snakes and

On a recent trip to Northern Ireland to see my nephew and his family, I found myself reflecting on the memories stirred by the long drive north. My wife and I travelled via southern Scotland, taking the ferry from Stranraer so that we would pass through the country where my much-loved Scottish grandfather had grown up. Driving up the M5 past my childhood home in the Midlands, the spire of Tewkesbury Abbey came into view and with it memories of my mother, who loved it deeply.