In her final column, written before she died last week, the writer remembers meeting three boys on the French Riviera. Who could have guessed they would take her joke seriously?
My parents ate my pet ducks – but they still had happier lives than most poultry
Michele Hanson
Birds today are treated terribly, overfed and debeaked to satisfy our appetite for eating such numbers of them. Can’t we all be a little less wasteful?
Teaching is on the road to hell – the story of the national curriculum proves it
Michele Hanson
Teachers have been dragged through endless, mostly mystifying changes since 1988 – and still more are in the pipeline. Will the government stop making a dog’s breakfast of education?
What the saviour of London’s pigeons taught me about the problem with plastic
Michele Hanson
Decades ago, the late writer and critic spent hours on the streets on London rescuing birds tangled in plastic thread. She should have been a warning sign of the horrors to come
So much has improved for women since I went to antenatal classes in the 70s. But some approaches to pregnancy and a healthy childbirth still won’t wash
What I learned about capitalism from running a stall on Portobello market
Michele Hanson
Bargains were snatched from the shoppers who needed them in order to make bigger profits from people with fatter wallets. It was the trickle-up effect at work – much like our system now
