An Uplifting Voice

[First published on Fish on Friday]

Jane Dolby, founder of the Fishwives Choir, writes about the loss of her husband in Song of the Sea, a moving memoir of bereavement and triumph published this week. Rachel Walker talks to her about finding her voice and telling her inspiring story.

Jane Dolby (far left) singing with The Fishwives Choir at Fish Hall, 2014

I first met Jane Dolby almost exactly one year ago. It was a bright spring morning at Fishmonger’s Hall and the staff were busily preparing for a formal lunch. I heard Jane and her group, the Fishwives Choir, before I met them, their big voices filling the lofty entrance hall and rebounding down the polished corridors…. 

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One man and his fish

[First published at Fish on Friday]

Simply called Fish, Masterchef-winner Mat Follas’ new cookbook is a celebration of seasonal British seafood in all its wonderful variety. Rachel Walker meets the man himself.

Mat on Chesil Beach. Picture: © Steve Painter

It’s the day before the launch of chef Mat Follas’ debut cookbook Fish and he’s busy. Not with a hectic promotional tour, or pre-launch jitters, but he’s just got back to Dorset from a ten-day expedition through the south of France on his scuffed Harley and he’s gearing up for the weekly cycle of running a one-man restaurant…. 

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The Cookbook Book

Mrs Dorothy Lintott, The History Boys by Alan Bennett

“History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.” says Mrs Dorothy Lintott in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys. For a female history teacher in 1980s Sheffield, it must have seemed that way. But it was a time that the study of history itself was starting to change. Slowly.

… 

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