BY MANDY BALDWIN There were hints that there may be a new baby on the way, during the triumphant tour of Germany – Kate, usually the soul of good manners, only pretended to sip from a huge stein of beer. And now we know: there will be a Number Three to add to Gorgeous George, and adorable little Charlotte, who is a dead-ringer for her … Continue reading Baby Love
BY MANDY BALDWIN They were faces of safety to think of in the nights when my blood pumped so hard in my ears I’d sit up and look at the moon sliding across the small high window, rather than put my head down on the pillow. On the top bunk my brother stayed sleeping, and if I called out that I was afraid, he’d laugh … Continue reading Family Remembered
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Last Wednesday, after a steak and chips in Eastbourne with my accountant, I was due in 1066 country in East Sussex to interview Country Squire’s writer Mandy Baldwin. I wound my way through tiny country lanes until I found a dirt track to a campsite, which was located amidst an old copse on the side of a hill from which there are … Continue reading English Seaside Project Interview
BY MANDY BALDWIN We live in a time of great deceit, because we live in a time of denunciation – which is what happens when people are encouraged to tell tales to the authorities. Tale-telling is tediously endemic now, as it always is under despotisms, but these days, denouncers don’t have to sneak into an office under cover of darkness to do the dirty. It’s … Continue reading Telling Tales
BY MANDY BALDWIN Let’s get this straight: Sarah Champion, who spearheaded the enquiry into the mass-rape of children in Rotherham, has resigned her position as Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, because some people who favour lies over little girls threw a hissy-fit. I read some of the outraged comments by Labour supporters on the subject and their main beef was that she … Continue reading Not So Champion
BY MANDY BALDWIN A vast mass of barely-distinguishable toxins have been milling about together in Virginia over the weekend. Apparently, someone left the gates to the sewers open, and this lot spilled out. But take a special look at the toxins flying the Nazi flag, as opposed to the toxins flying the Antifa flag (which was flown by the killers of Drummer Lee Rigby.) These … Continue reading Lurking Poisons
BY MANDY BALDWIN I’ve never really paid much attention to Philip Hammond, except to notice that he looks a lot like the love child of Nanny McPhee and Topo Gigio, a TV puppet mouse I was fond of in childhood. No, I tell a lie, that’s not all: I’ve also noticed that, while he has been as omnipresent in recent governments as the proverbial fart … Continue reading Why Is Philip Hammond?
BY MANDY BALDWIN The soldier made of Flanders mud, placed in Trafalgar Square to commemorate Passchendaele is, in my opinion, the most poignant work of war-art ever made. Watch him melt, destroyed by the weather of another wet summer, and to understand the 3rd Battle of Ypres, you hardly need Siegfried Sassoon’s chilling words: “I died in Hell. They called it Passchendaele.” The First World … Continue reading Passchendaele Lessons Unheeded
BY MANDY BALDWIN I’d bet my flip-flops and tonight’s sausages, none of the regulars at Country Squire Magazine have ever donned a blue and white wimple – no, not even the ones who attended excellent schools – but Mother Theresas come in all shapes and sizes, and CSM most definitely saved my bacon, and my marbles, to whatever extent they have been saved. It had … Continue reading The English Seaside Project
BY MANDY BALDWIN For a man who once claimed he would ‘hit the ground running’ Tony Blair actually proved in one respect remarkably lazy. After all, instead of creating a party in his image from scratch, he simply latched onto ailing Labour, eviscerated it, and gave it a shiny new coat of paint. He himself was shiny and new in 1997 – at forty-three, the … Continue reading The Man Who Would Be King
BY MANDY BALDWIN Great Ormond Street Hospital are not exactly covering themselves with glory over the case of Charlie Gard, the little boy whose parents have been ordered to let him die, despite treatment being available. In fact, so great is the apparent damage to GOSH’s image, I wouldn’t even be surprised if custodians of the J. M. Barrie estate are considering their options. The … Continue reading Suffer Little Children
BY MANDY BALDWIN The young Remainers have been betrayed this last week. Merkel has shown her true colours and voted against gay marriage and Corbyn is firing all who stand between Britain and hard Brexit. Neither should have come as any surprise; if Merkel had a tolerant bone in her body she would not so readily expose secular Europe to Islamism, and Corbyn, whose mantra … Continue reading Feet of Clay
BY MANDY BALDWIN There’s much written about the weirdness of the Celtic Fringe, but only rarely does anyone mention quite how gloriously bonkers we English can be, unleashed in the countryside where nobody can hear us scream. As a regular camper, I’m used to a certain amount of oddity, but this last place has such a dreamlike quality, I’m glad my daughter was able to … Continue reading Al Fresco Dangling & The Bulgarian Fish Racket
BY MANDY BALDWIN So, the irons have been pulled out of the fire and we didn’t have to face the terrifying prospect of Catweazle shuffling resentfully into the presence of our beloved Queen (or ‘Comrade Windsor’, as he no-doubt refers to her in his wildest dreams) to be given permission to surrender us to whatever poisons lurk in the mud. After a sleepless night watching … Continue reading Don’t Look Back in Anger
BY MANDY BALDWIN I cut up my Labour Party membership card in 1998 when it was clear that the shiny new Blair version of Labour had betrayed the interests of the voters. How conned we all were, those of us who gave Blair the power to inflict on Britain scars which may never heal. I should have remembered: betrayal is in Labour’s DNA. The trouble … Continue reading Taking a Sharp Left
BY MANDY BALDWIN In the wake of the slaughter of innocents in Manchester last week, a teaching pack has been issued to schools to ensure that children don’t react healthily to events by developing a simple and strong moral sense that killing kids at concerts is unquestionably inexcusable. Let murder and mayhem break out all around us, let men who broke bread with – and … Continue reading Here’s One I Made Earlier
BY MANDY BALDWIN Well, it’s nearly midnight on Tuesday, and no doubt those who attended the vigil in Albert Square have gone home now, comforted and gratified by a show of togetherness. Candles were lit, the Union flag was beamed onto public buildings across the world, and a poet read an ode to the industrial revolution. Some Guardian journalists became misty eyed about what they … Continue reading Sacrificial Lambs
BY MANDY BALDWIN Election fever is sweeping the nation, and this time around I personally find every party to be in varying degrees disturbing or repellent, so my thoughts are a politics-free zone. In that spirit, I found myself reading about something which has been in the headlines for several months now: I mean, the possible engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. I am … Continue reading Thumbs Up to Princess Sparkle
BY MANDY BALDWIN I was standing on a cliff-top in Bude, dressed in nothing but a silver skirt and flip-flops, only a set of bongo-drums between myself and indecency. The previous night, I’d murdered a man in a jealous frenzy while travelling on a steam-train across Bodmin Moor. As an ice-cream van careered across the cliff, chimes playing ‘Greensleeves’, and I joined six other half-naked … Continue reading Earning A Crust in Cornwall
BY MANDY BALDWIN So, a general election has been called and immediately come the cries from fringe parties – notably the Greens and Lib Dems – for voting to be extended to sixteen-year-olds. They seem not to realise that by calling for those who are still legally children to be granted the most solemn honour a democracy can bestow, they automatically brand themselves as being … Continue reading Children Should Not Vote
