Category Archives: Empathy

Sister Cities

Posted on March 27, 2026 by Jamie Jauncey

In a city centre park in Asheville, North Carolina, there is a signpost with markers indicating six Sister Cities around the world. One of these points to Dunkeld and Birnam (3808 miles). I live there. Dunkeld and Birnam is not … Continue reading →

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Dunblane

Posted on March 6, 2026 by Jamie Jauncey

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Thirty years ago this coming week, Sarah and I were on a short break in the Lake District. We had been together for ten years, we were living in a beautiful place, our respective careers were fulfilling, the children, aged … Continue reading →

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Humankindness

Posted on December 19, 2025 by Jamie Jauncey

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I’ve been listening to the 2025 BBC Reith Lectures, given by Rutger Bregman, the young Dutch historian who became an international sensation in 2019 after standing up at the Davos World Economic Forum and berating a room full of billionaires for … Continue reading →

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Witness Blanket

Posted on October 17, 2025 by Jamie Jauncey

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I recently watched a clip of a Native American elder in a wheelchair being jostled by New York police during a protest against ICE. Speaking to a reporter he said that it pained him to be there in a moment … Continue reading →

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Dark Angels on Writing

Posted on July 4, 2019 by Jamie Jauncey

Over the years I’ve come to believe that people are sometimes drawn to Dark Angels courses in answer to an unspoken, perhaps even unacknowledged, need. They may not know it but at the moment they hear about our programme there … Continue reading →

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Across the great divide

Posted on March 1, 2019 by Jamie Jauncey

I’m watching Debate Night, the new BBC Scotland channel’s answer to Question Time. It serves to underline a question I have been asking myself more and more frequently in recent months: how do we engage with people who hold diametrically … Continue reading →

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The stories we tell

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

In the past month I’ve spent a week in Spain with a group of eight people on a The Stories We Tell course, and a week in the Northwest Highlands with a friend I’ve known for 45 years. At the … Continue reading →

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Long division

Posted on May 18, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

A woman got onto the train the other day and sat down opposite me. She was fifty-ish, tanned and smartly dressed. She had come from the airport and was breathless. We chatted and I learned that she had been to … Continue reading →

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Born storytellers

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

“We’re a narrative species,” said the scientist on Radio 4 the other day. “We understand the world in terms of stories.” He was talking about the MMR vaccine and how the stories of danger that have grown up around it … Continue reading →

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Untold stories

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

If one is asked the same question often enough, no matter how difficult, one sooner or later comes up with an answer that can be given without too much further thought. It may not be precisely the right one, but … Continue reading →

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