Jeni Barnett

My grandmother – Bubba Sophie – lived in a tenement block in the East End of London. She had an outdoor toilet and her sister Aunty Becky, who lived upstairs. My Nan had blonde hair, which I only found out was dyed in my mid teens. She looked like Sophie Tucker. Her three rooms comprised … Read more

We’re born with 20 teeth and grow into 32. I now have 22 with two fake ones on the top right. The whole set are shiny and white and allow me to smile confidently. But not for long. Here comes the history of the destabilisation of my septuagenarian mouth My extractions started when I was … Read more

I slid off my bed, tied up my trainers and put a Lidl’s puffa jacket – orange from the middle aisle £9.99 – over my pyjamas. It was 5.30. I set off down the hill, turned right towards the avenue. The sun was already peeking over the clouds. All was dead quiet save for the … Read more

I made lunch for two of our agents. He was our bass player in ‘Belt and Braces’ (that’s not his outfit it was the name of our theatre group) when he was 18, he’s now 62. She was a dancer and still has the grace of a trained hoofer. I made Goan fish curry and … Read more

And so we move into a new phase of kidney kare. Three days ago I was booked into Guys hospital to have a fistula inserted in my arm. For those of you who don’t know what a fistula is it’s the joining together of a vein and an artery so that dialysis can be achieved … Read more

Like bashful ladies the leaves waved in the wind. I sat at the kitchen table and watched. The clouds heavy and Sid out and about. We have a visiting Jack Russel so Sid goes off, now I know he always returns but it’s stressful though. I went to Lidls’ and bought flat peaches and flat … Read more

There are protests happening all over the USA. Pammie with a placard, is protesting, she’s just had chemo for cancer, but her rage is so great she’s standing in her small American town with two thousand others holding her handwritten sign and protesting The Orange arseholes’ decision to put troops on the streets of LA. … Read more

Accommodating dialysis doesn’t get any easier. I called it cleansing, a gentle euphemism for the reality of the drain of it. Then the old git came up with ‘dry-cleaning’……so now I go to the dry cleaners three times a week. I binge on television box sets and meditate to Belle Ruth Napersteck’s CD on dealing … Read more

As an old Jew being empathetic towards Palestinians does not make you Anti Semitic. Criticising Israel does not make you Anti Semitic. Calling out right wing Israeli politicians does not make you Anti Semitic. Shouting at a young Israeli woman who suggests that war requires the killing of ‘the offspring, so they don’t make any … Read more

I was born in 1949, four years after the end of the Second World War. My mother was in her late twenties when she had me, sister to a brother who was born in 1947. We were slum kids. The tenements of the East End was our playground. Stone steps leading up to our grandmothers … Read more