One of the books I inherited from my mother is falling apart. The covering of the spine has been lost, the edges of the pages are tattered and some have fallen out completely. Open the book and you will find sticky tape holding the torn and tattered pages, some of
Was I named after Empress Alexandra (pictured above), wife of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia? It is a question I have been asked time and time again. It was not something I ever discussed with my mother. How do parents decide on names for their children? I had a few
This week I began to sort through the numerous photo albums which I inherited. My parents and grandparents, and no doubt other relatives, were very vague with their inscriptions on the photos, if they wrote anything at all. Some are inscribed with random names like “Helen”, or with simply a
I have a vague childhood memory of the evenings between Christmas on the 25December and Russian Christmas on the 7 January spent curled up on the sofa next to my mother, who was reading to me from The Nutcracker and The Mouse King. Opposite us was the Christmas tree we
On 1 January 1946 my great-grandmother, Catherine Nicolaievna Jakowzoff (formerly Countess Kleinmichel), sent a Christmas / New Year greeting to her granddaughter, my mother. The images of the card and the photo she sent are above. At the time of writing my great-grandmother was 81 and living in France, and
Once upon a time – let’s say seventy years ago – there was a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman. They had only been married for around four months and were beginning to build a life together in a big city. They were not wealthy but they were