4 h. ago Stalker mayor caught out after sending 'fixated' love letters to wrong woman

Mayor of Whitehaven, Cumbria, Graham Roberts, 72, sent six letters intended for Kate Blacklock, 26, over a period of two-and-a-half weeks last year proclaiming her as his 'dearest darling'

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33 h. ago Stalking mayor, 72, who bombarded wrong woman with love letters after becoming infatuated by barmaid is hit with £294 fine and restraining order

Graham Roberts, 72, became infatuated with Kate Blacklock, 26, during twice-weekly visits to the Sunny Hill pub in Whitehaven, Cumbria where he was serving as mayor.

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43 h. ago The Extraordinary Miss Flower review – secret life exposed through treasure trove of love letters

Nick Cave and Richard Ayoade are among those reading out the posthumously discovered missives that inspired an album by Emilíana Torrini, who soundtracks this gorgeous filmYou’d be forgiven for not having heard of Geraldine Flower, the subject of A new film from artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, the pair behind the 2014 Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth. (Cave makes an appearance here reading a letter or two.) Flower was not famous in her lifetime and in fact, after watching the film we’re none the wiser about how she spent her later years. But when she died in 2019, a suitcase packed with hundreds of love letters written to her by smitten men in the 60s and 70s was found in her London flat.The letters inspired a 2024 album by Icelandic singer-songwriter Emilíana Torrini (called Miss Flower) and also this intriguing, gorgeous and creative documentary – a film somewhere between an installation with songs and an extended music promo. It features Torrini and her band perf...

Politics

69 h. ago Homefires burning: how a cache of passionate love letters shows the second world war on two fronts

The intimate correspondence of a Manchester Guardian journalist and his wife is the basis for a theatre piece marking the 80th anniversary of VE DayDuring a house move, a cardboard box belonging to my husband Matthew’s grandparents came to light. Inside we found thousands of love letters sent between the Manchester Guardian journalist Gerard Fay and his wife Alice, during the second world war. They were jumbled up and undated, and reading them all seemed a daunting task, so the box was shelved.Matthew is an academic writing a book about an earlier generation of Fays, Frank and Willie, the actors who co-founded Dublin’s Abbey theatre with WB Yeats. Frank was Gerard’s father, so when lockdown happened we decided to tackle the correspondence, to see if there was any useful information for Matthew’s book. We discovered so much more. Continue reading...

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1 week ago UK's most dangerous prisoner's love letters to new girlfriend

Robert Maudsley, who has been dubbed Hannibal the Cannibal, has never met his new girlfriend Loveinia MacKenney, but the pair say they have a 'special bond'

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1 week ago UK's most dangerous prisoner's disturbing love letters to new girlfriend

Robert Maudsley, once the UK's most dangerous prisoner, has found love according to a series of cards penned behind bars and seen for the first time by the Mirror

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1 week ago With WH Smith's name set to disappear from the high street, LAURA CRAIK writes a love letter to the stores that are no more

When yet another former high-street favourite shuts, it's not just doors that are closing, but a portal to our past, too. Laura Craik writes a love letter to the stores that are no more

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1 week ago Bad Friend by Tiffany Watt Smith review – refreshingly frank portraits of female friendship

A social and personal history that refuses to gloss over the rage, envy and hurt that form part of every close bondFalling out with a friend can feel oddly shameful. Romantic relationships are meant to have passionate highs and lows, but by the time you reach adulthood, you expect your friendships to have reached some kind of equilibrium. I have this image in my head of myself as an affectionate, devoted friend – but sometimes I examine my true feelings towards the women who are closest to me and feel shocked by my own pettiness. It is embarrassing to be a grownup but still capable of such intense flashes of rage, and envy. When my friendships become distant or strained, I wonder why I still struggle to do this basic thing.Bad Friend represents a kind of love letter to female friendship, but doesn’t gloss over how difficult it can be. Tiffany Watt Smith is a historian, and this book is a deeply researched study of 20th-century women’s relationships, but the reason for writing i...

Politics

1 week ago I found an old letter. What it said changed how I think about love

Holding onto keepsakes isn’t holding onto the past, and moving on doesn’t have to mean completely forgetting the old flames who helped form us. Helen Coffey takes a trip down memory lane and thanks her former self for having the foresight to preserve her romantic souvenirs

Politics

1 week ago Don’t throw away love letters and mementos from exes – you’ll regret it

Holding onto keepsakes isn’t holding onto the past, and moving on doesn’t have to mean completely forgetting the old flames who helped form us. Helen Coffey takes a trip down memory lane and thanks her former self for having the foresight to preserve her romantic souvenirs

Politics

1 week ago Why I still keep love letters and mementos from exes – and you should too

Holding onto keepsakes isn’t holding onto the past, and moving on doesn’t have to mean completely forgetting the old flames who helped form us. Helen Coffey takes a trip down memory lane and thanks her former self for having the foresight to preserve her romantic souvenirs

Politics

3 w. ago My father threw out my box of memories then took his own life. How can I move on? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

Your sadness at losing reminders of happier times may have been heightened by the traumatic loss of your dad• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a problem sent in by a readerNot long before the Covid pandemic, my dad threw out my cardboard box of mementoes that I had stored in his garage for “safekeeping”: years’ worth of personal journals, Polaroids and photos with no negatives, love letters, all of my degree essays, reams of teenage poetry, etc – the classic priceless time capsule stuff that one looks forward to revisiting one day.It was one of his final acts before taking his own life, so it was a double whammy of bereavement in which my first loss was buried by the second. And, with the pandemic arriving shortly afterwards, it stayed buried for further years as, again, I was distracted by something else serious happening. But once that had passed, the original grief returned with a vengeance and has become an abiding sorrow that’s been difficult to shake off: the feeling tha...

Politics

4 w. ago Mayor, 72, is convicted of stalking after bombarding barmaid with letters professing his undying love... but he was sending them to the wrong woman

Police were left in no doubt who they were from as Graham Roberts, 72, included his business card, confirming him as first citizen of Whitehaven, Cumbria.

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