Keeping Mum
Reader's Digest, March 2012 Vera was kind and liberal - the sort of parent you'd always wished you'd had. Or was she? A cautionary Mother's Day tale from Monica Porter As mothers go, mine was definitely at the tough end of the
Olympic Dividend
Business Life, October 2011 How to Earn an Olympic Dividend Back in 2008, Catering 2 Order was a small catering business in southeast London with a turnover of £100,000, owned by a blind black man called John Charles. Construction had just begun
Sisters of Mercy
Daily Express, 27 January 2012 To commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, we tell the remarkable tale of the opera-loving British spinsters who defied Hitler to save the lives of imperilled Jews A new book celebrates the 27 remarkable men and women who have
Two Titanic Victims
Daily Express, 14 January 2012 A Tale of Two Titanic Victims In April 1912 the ‘unsinkable’ superliner RMS Titanic was on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, when it hit an iceberg in mid-Atlantic and sank with the loss of
Saving the British Pub
Business Life, October 2011 The Local's Heroes Some are calling time on the British pub but key players have learnt to evolve and survive. Hundreds of Britain’s landlords will celebrate British Pub Week later this month – and you couldn't blame them if
The Blame Game
Jewish Chronicle, 5 August 2011 So, will the left blame Islam for Breivik's acts? There has been a tidal wave of coverage in the media about Anders Behring Breivik and his murderous rampage in Norway. Was he a solitary monster or part
Charing Cross Road
Seven Magazine - Sunday Telegraph, 26 June 2011 The Prisoner of 84 Charing Cross Road Forty years ago, a New York woman's correspondence with a London bookshop became a publishing sensation. But her success was bittersweet, writes Monica Porter Forty years ago this
Abolish the EU
Reader's Digest, May 2011 We Brits spend a lot of our time disparaging that contentious organisation, the European Union. With its meddlesome laws and regulations, fat-cat MEPs and waste of taxpayers’ money, it’s easy to see why some of us wish
Halfway House
Jewish Chronicle, 25 March 2011 It's bleak in the halfway house I was in my early twenties when I found out that I was half-Jewish. Until then, as far as I was aware, I was merely a lapsed Catholic who, by the
Tangled in the web
The Stage, 27 January 2011 With Antony Sher, Anita Dobson and Julian Fellowes in her midst during her time studying at Webber Douglas, Monica Porter thought she'd have the time of her life. Quite the opposite, she discovered. Forty years ago I
A Very Reluctant Hero
Daily Express, 26 January 2011 At the age of 101 Sir Nicholas Winton is an idol, still treated like royalty for selflessly saving hundreds of children's lives. He just can't understand what all the fuss is about. Sir Nicholas Winton has been
Friends Reunited
The Stage, 4 November 2010 Over the years, journalist Monica Porter has reconnected many long-separated friends and relatives through her weekly newspaper column, Missing and Found. Here, she shares a selection of the most memorable showbiz reunion tales Since 1999 I’ve been
Changing Names
Jewish Chronicle, 20 August 2010 Names are there to be changed Shakespeare was right about names, Kirk Douglas and the French Jews are just being sentimental By Monica Porter I've just been reading the most recent autobiography of nonagenarian movie star Kirk Douglas (his
40 Years On
Reader's Digest, July 2010 Some of you may have given up on the values that made me come to Britain all those years ago. But I haven't. 40 Years On by Monica Porter It was 40 years ago this summer that I moved
Stay or Go?
Reader's Digest, January 2010 Should you stay or should you go? When emigrants leave home for a new life, some of the biggest tensions they face are not with their new neighbours, but with the families they leave behind. Refugees and immigrants. Today’s
Rebuilding the Bridge
Saga Magazine, October 2009 Monica Porter recalls returning to Hungary – the country she fled with her parents as a four-year-old – with her young son I was four years old when my family escaped from Hungary, just after the 1956 Revolution
My Budapest
Jewish Chronicle, 18 September 2009 Budapest beyond the guidebooks. Writer Monica Porter offers a very personal view of the Hungarian capital Some people love Paris in the springtime. But I’ll take Budapest in the autumn, the perfect time to go. Especially this year:
Pigs Might Fly
Saga Magazine, May 2009 That was the cry that went up when Lord Brabazon, right, attempted the first flight in a UK-made aircraft 100 years ago. Monica Porter looks back at the momentous events that gave birth to powered flight in
Press Trips
Press Gazette, 16 May 2008 Seeing the world while the PR company picks up the bill
Hippy Trail
Daily Express, 8 May 2008 While her friends were seeking nirvana, MONICA PORTER was up to her eyes in nappies. Now a grandmother, she headed to Nepal to find out what the fuss had been about Few places sound as exotic and