When Rebecca Lowe set off solo from the UK for Iran by bicycle, her friends thought she had taken leave of her senses. But although she had to endure gropers, extreme heat and heavy-handed police, most of the people she met were a long way removed from stereotypes. The day I left London to embark on a 6,000-mile (10,000km), year-long cycle to Tehran, I was deeply unprepared. I wasn’t fit. I had never used panniers. I had no sense of direction. It was six years since I had last ridden up a hill. But for all my doubts, I was […]

Image copyright Getty Images One of these is Dr Michael Dixon, a GP from Devon, who has been appointed NHS England’s social prescribing lead to champion non-medical ways of treating patients. Image copyright Getty Images And it can even involve utilising the skills of patients who get referred to them, says Wellbeing Enterprises chief executive officer Mark Swift. “We had one patient who could play the ukuele so we set up a ukuele class. It really took off and we ran out of the instruments. On another occasion a doctor was referred to us who was a good tango dancer […]

Image caption The Caledonia Road Church in the Gorbals was threatened with demolition in 1966 When Glasgow council was planning to demolish one of Thomson’s landmark churches in 1966, influential American architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock made a plea for them to stop. He said: “Glasgow in the last 150 years has had two of the greatest architects in the world.” Image caption The church was described as one of the finest Classical Romantic churches in Europe Who was Alexander Thomson? Thomson, who was born 200 years ago next week in the Stirlingshire village of Balfron, acquired the nickname ‘Greek’ despite […]