Peter Fraenkel

It’s a cold place, this earth of ours, and it gets ever colder as you go further north.  I’m told it also gets cold as you go south, but I have never ventured that way myself. Nowadays I live in a flat in modern residential tower with underfloor heating that keeps me snug. But it wasn’t always so. The first family residence I remember was at Kosel, then Germany though it has since been renamed Kozle and been incorporated into Poland. There we had tiled ovens, some six or seven…read more

A while ago a former colleague made me a speech which set me thinking. Years earlier, he said, I had spotted and encouraged a talent of his. Partly In response to such encouragement he had specialised in the field. Now that he was reaching retirement age he still found lots of freelance work in this field and an income to supplement his pension. He owed me a debt of thanks. I pondered: Who had, similarly, helped me on in my own career? A long list of names came to mind…read more

My life changed when headmaster Parker discovered I owned a typewriter and could type – even though it was with two fingers only. I was frequently called out of class and set to work. On a piece of scrap paper, he had scribbled his quarterly report to the Northern Rhodesia Education department and handed it to me to type. He jotted down the school’s accounts roughly and instructed me to organize them in neat columns before typing. I guess he also had to write annual reports on the performance of…read more