Sir Trevor McDonald struggles to remember many instances of racism
Credit: Phil Fisk /CAMERA PRESS
Looking back over his almost six decades in journalism, a career in which he became one of the most famous black faces on British television, Sir Trevor McDonald struggles to remember many instances of racism.
“No, I can’t complain about great suffering myself,” he says. Then he does recall one. “One of my editors told me, long after the incident, that someone called him up when I started doing
News at Ten, saying ‘What’s that black guy doing reading the news?’”
Still, McDonald, now 81, need only compare his experience with that of his children – Jack, 31, from his second marriage, and Tim and Joanne with first wife, Beryl – to see the progress that has been made.
Captain Tom Moore s lessons on life: Whatever problems we are facing, we have to remain hopeful
On what would have been his 101st birthday, here is an extract from new book Captain Tom’s Life Lessons. This chapter is called Hope
30 April 2021 • 5:00am
With his 1912 Scott Flying Squirrel and trophies won in trials
Credit: Courtesy of Captain Tom Moore s family
When I first visited Robben Island in South Africa, I was so moved to think that Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid campaigner who became the country’s first black president, was imprisoned there for eighteen years, living in a tiny cell and sleeping on a straw mat.
Are private schools really worth the money any more?
Sexual-abuse allegations, a fall in the number of Oxbridge admissions and ever-increasing fees – is it time to reassess independent schools?
30 April 2021 • 5:00am
Left: Eton, Berkshire
£42,500 per year 48 pupils offered places at Oxbridge in 2021; right: Brampton Manor Academy, Newham
£0 per year 55 pupils offered places at Oxbridge in 2021
Credit: Getty
A year ago, during the height of the first lockdown, Amy and Simon Eccles, both NHS consultants at a central London teaching hospital, had a conversation with their five-year-old daughter Hermione. She had joined Hill House, the Knightsbridge private school famous for its uniform of mustard jumpers and knickerbockers, the previous September. But as the pandemic hit, Hill House had to close. Amy, 41, and Simon, 50, decided to move Hermione to the local state school in Southwark.
The Future of Work: How the pandemic will change the way we handle sickness in the office
In the final part of this series, we look at how, in the wake of Covid, the pressure is on bosses to encourage employees to live better
29 April 2021 • 5:00am
The very definition of sickness and health is changing and that will have a knock-on effect on the workplace
Pandemics change economies. The Black Death set the stage for the Renaissance. A study of every major outbreak since – plague, cholera and flu – reveals repeated convulsions as surviving workers demanded more pay and nervous investors saved rather than spent.