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This blog takes its title from the fact that kindness originally meant being kin, or kindred, or of the same kind – a reminder that we are all humankind. I post regularly on Friday. Enter your email address below to Follow and receive each post direct to your inbox. A Few Kind Words is now also on Substack if you prefer to read it there: https://substack.com/@jamiejauncey.
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Author Archives: Jamie Jauncey
A Cup of Kindness
Tessa Ransford, distinguished Scottish poet and founder of the Scottish Poetry Library, sent me this in response to Friday’s post about Syria. She says: “I wrote this poem about three weeks ago after hearing Canon White from Iraq speaking on … Continue reading
The road to Damascus?
Walking back from the polling station yesterday afternoon in the drizzle, past the familiar faces and houses of our village, I found myself trying to imagine what it would be like to live in Damascus where, aged 61, I would … Continue reading
Tagged Arab Spring, Culloden, Damascus, Scottish election, Syria
3 Comments
Curiouser and curiouser
A couple of times most weeks I take the train to Edinburgh. For several miles the line follows the Fife coast. There’s a long view south under huge skies across the Forth Estuary to Edinburgh and its acropolis, the Pentland … Continue reading
Standing under
I suppose Easter weekend is as appropriate a moment as any to write about empathy. In the Christian calendar, at least, it represents the high point of suffering; and empathy translates literally from the Greek as ‘suffering in’ (as opposed … Continue reading
Tagged 9/11, Easter, empathy, Iraq, Sam Richards
2 Comments
Chinook secrets
In June 1994 an RAF Chinook helicopter, travelling from Northern Ireland, flew into a hillside on the Mull of Kintyre, killing everyone on board. Alongside the four crew, the 25 passengers included almost all the UK’s most senior Northern Ireland … Continue reading
Summing up
I heard yesterday that my novel The Witness has finally earned out its advance, nearly four years after publication. Jenny Brown, my agent, tells me that a cheque for about £20 is on its way to my account. Champagne all … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Publishing, The Reckoning, The Witness
Tagged publishing advances, young adult fiction, Young Picador
6 Comments
Oxford blue
I’m in Oxford now, at Merton College. Our Dark Angels students are working on their projects and I’m finding a brief moment of quiet in my room, remembering the first time I ever came here. I was twelve years old. My … Continue reading
More dreams and portents
Next week we go to Merton College, Oxford to run the second of our biennial Dark Angels masterclasses. It will be an exciting few days. Not only do we have BBC Radio 4’s In Business team joining us for part … Continue reading
Tycho Brahe
On Monday night I had a very strange experience. It had almost the quality of a vision. We had spent the weekend in Wales with my daughter and her family. On Monday morning we had left early to travel back … Continue reading
Tagged dreams, esoterica, In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg, The Reckoning, Tycho Brahe
6 Comments
A Few Kind Words 