The best of times, the worst of times
Actually, just the best of times (it's my top pieces from 2024)
Hello and happy new year! I’m slowly creaking back into gear after two weeks in a haze of roast potatoes and CBeebies. I actually intended to send this post before Christmas, but a festive bout of norovirus meant I downed tools slightly earlier than expected. So while I should really be looking to the year ahead, I’m instead casting my eye back to 2024 in the great freelance journalists’ tradition of rounding up the work I was most proud of last year.
Here in the UK we’ve heard a lot about local authorities going bust because of equal pay claims. In my first Guardian Long Read piece of this year, I wrote about the inspirational women in Glasgow who discovered they were being paid far less than their male counterparts and started a campaign for justice. They’ve been fighting for almost 20 years.
For Prospect magazine, I explored the case for direct cash transfers as a way to prevent homelessness. A significant number of people end up homeless because of debts to the government, or rent arrears to the council, and given the much higher costs incurred by keeping someone in temporary accommodation (not to mention the human cost of becoming homeless), it seems a no-brainer.
As Ukraine marked the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, I spoke to Ukrainian refugees in the UK for this GQ piece. They told me about the pain of displacement and the difficulty of being trapped in limbo, navigating British politeness, and flying back to Ukraine to access dentistry.
I think this, for the Guardian Long Read, was the best piece I worked on all year: the story of Stuart Potts, a man who has turned his home into a homeless shelter. Stuart lives in a one-bed flat in Manchester which he opens up to anyone who needs a place to crash for the night. With a history of drug addiction and street homelessness himself, he knows the power of offering a helping hand. I loved spending time with Stuart and the people who passed through his flat.
In the summer, I went to France to report a story for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine about deaths caused by extreme heat. David Azevedo was a construction worker with no prior health conditions who died in the 2022 heatwaves. I spoke with his family about how the tragedy unfolded. I found this story deeply affecting; in the west, we can all have a tendency to think of climate change as something happening far away, but it’s already having a profound impact close to home.
I enjoyed writing a few opinion pieces this year, particularly this one for the Guardian on the problem with public inquiries. It gave me the chance to think more deeply about something I’ve been wondering about for a while: are public inquiries a way to ensure accountability, or to kick it down the road?
I haven’t done much writing on parenting, but I reported a piece for the Sunday Times magazine about the massive rise in tongue-tie procedures and how it might be linked to increased pressure on women to breastfeed.
November in the UK is poppy season - these red flowers are ubiquitous, pinned to shirts, coats, affixed to train stations, buses, cars and shop window displays. For the Guardian Long Read, I dug into the recent history of poppy-mania, and explored how war remembrance became a stand in for a host of conversations about national pride.
For my final long feature of the year, I wrote a story for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine about the rising threat of 3D-printed guns, with blueprints easily available online, and regularly shared in libertarian and far right circles. With access to a huge tranche of police documents, I focused in on a case in Finland, where a far-right cell manufactured 3D-printed guns with the intention of starting a race war.
It also struck me that it’s been a year since I started this Substack (I launched it in the first week of January 2024). It’s been really lovely to have this space to share my work and reflections on it - so thank you very much for coming along with me for the ride, for reading, sharing, and responding. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.