- social issues
- articles/in full
- A Foster Mother’s Secret: Healing Abused Children
- The Independent
London, 1986, 855 words; extracts
Versión en español -
Jeanette Roberts began fostering abused children several decades before child abuse was widely acknowledged. Her work methods were often at odds with the English social care system. Much of her thinking is still relevant.
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- Argentina’s Disappeared Children: Carla Artés
- Marie Claire
New York & London, 1999, 2,000 words; adapted extracts -
Carla Artés was found by her grandmother, Satcha, after early years of childhood under a false identity created by her parents. Her real parents had disappeared during the Argentinian dictatorship.
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- Cybertown: Villena’s Virtual Town-Hall
- European Magazine
London, 1996, 900 words; extracts -
In the mid-1990s I read about a 'virtual' town-hall in a small town in Alicante province where the past and the future rubbed shoulders. I wanted to find out what it meant on the ground. Ten years on the project has moved on - see the epilogue.
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- Madrid’s Shanty-Towns: Cañada Real 1997-2007
- Big Issue
London, Edinburgh & Dublin, 1997, 1,350 words; extracts
French language version -
In 1995 I first visited Valdemingómez, an institutionalized Gypsy shanty-town. This article was the result. Juan Goytisolo, the novelist, took up the issue, petitions followed and the European Commission investigated.
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- Picassent, A Mixed Prison Wing: Living and Loving
- Marie Claire
London, 1994, 2,000 words; adapted extracts -
Europe's first mixed prison wing was set up in Picassent, just south of Valencia city. To write this article I spent a day there with photographer Veronica Janssen. The claustrophobia of prison life closes in on you in just a few hours - it was humbling to see how the prisoners dealt with it.
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