Reading

from 'The Inheritance' (written for this paper in the style of a nineteenth-century novel) Miss Clara Ashworth had resolved, upon entering the drawing-room at Fernley, that she would not be afraid of her aunt; and she kept this resolution for very nearly a minute. Mrs Ashworth sat by the fire in a high-backed chair, which she occupied as a general occupies a hill. She was a large woman, dressed in black silk that rustled whenever she breathed, and her eyes — small, pale and perfectly unblinking — travelled over her niece from bonnet to boot as though pricing her for sale. 'You are very like your mother,' she said at last. It was not a compliment. Clara curtseyed, because she could think of nothing else to do. The room was hot and close, crowded with furniture that seemed to have been bought for its weight rather than its beauty; a clock upon the mantel ticked with such severity that it appeared to be counting her faults. 'Your mother,' continued Mrs Ashworth, 'married against the wishes of her family, and she was punished for it, as such women always are. I trust you have more sense.' 'I trust so, ma'am,' said Clara, and was dismayed to hear her voice tremble. 'We shall see.' The pale eyes moved to the window, beyond which the November rain was driving across the lawns. 'You will have the blue room. Supper is at seven. And Clara —' the name was spoken as if it had a sour taste — 'in this house, we do not cry.' Clara went up the great dark staircase with her small trunk bumping behind her, and did not cry until she had shut the door.

Text 1: from a report on a school's 'phone-free' policy (2025, written for this paper) When Greystone Academy banned mobile phones from the start of the school day to the final bell, staff braced themselves for a revolt. Instead, after a difficult first fortnight, something unexpected happened: the noise came back. 'Break times used to be silent,' says deputy head Marcus Reid. 'Two hundred teenagers in the canteen, every one of them staring at a screen. Now they're playing cards, arguing about football, actually talking to each other.' The figures are striking. Incidents of online bullying reported to staff fell by 40% in the first term. Teachers report fewer distractions in lessons, and the library — once a quiet refuge — has started running a lunchtime chess club with a waiting list. Not everyone is convinced. Some parents complain that they cannot contact their children in an emergency, although the school office will pass on messages. A group of Year 11 students launched a petition arguing that phones help them to organise revision and manage anxiety. 'We're nearly adults,' one student wrote. 'We should be trusted to use them sensibly.' Mr Reid is sympathetic, but unmoved. 'We're not anti-technology,' he says. 'We use laptops in lessons all the time. But a phone in your pocket is a door that never closes. For seven hours a day, we've closed it.'

Text 2: from a newspaper column, 'The tyranny of the mobile' (1998, written for this paper) I was on a train to Leeds last week when the man opposite me answered his telephone. Not a telephone on the wall, you understand, nor one in a kiosk, but one he had carried in his jacket pocket like a packet of mints. 'Hello? Yes, I'm on the train,' he announced, at a volume suited to a cattle market. For the next forty minutes the entire carriage learned about his difficulties with a supplier in Wakefield, his opinion of his brother-in-law and the precise time he expected to be home for his tea. We are told these devices are the future. Soon, apparently, everyone will have one; children will carry them to school, and nobody will ever be out of reach again. The salesmen say this as if it were good news. I am not so sure. There is a particular kind of peace in being unreachable — on a walk, on a train, in a queue — that I suspect we will not miss until it is gone. When every moment can be interrupted, I wonder whether we will ever again give our whole attention to anything at all. My fellow passenger, I noticed, did not look out of the window once.