by Sally Churchward. In Common is a grass roots community news and features platform. It was set up around a year and a half ago, thanks to generous donations to pay towards the website development and hosting and people from in and around Southampton giving their time for free to...
Opinion: Women don’t feel safe
by Emma Louise Harris. Last week was vile for women. Bookended by what should be two celebratory days; International Women’s day on Monday and Mother’s Day on Sunday, yet filled with horror. On Monday, Labour MP Jess Phillips read out a list of the 118 names of women who...
How can Southampton become a Mental Health Friendly City?
People who live, work or run businesses in Southampton are being asked to express their views on how it can become a Mental Health Friendly City. Southampton Mental Health Network is asking residents to complete its survey to discover what they think a Mental Health Friendly City looks like...
Southampton to mark UN Anti-Racism Day with online event
This weekend, Southampton Stand Up To Racism is marking the United Nations International Day for The Elimination of Racial Discrimination with an online event featuring music, poetry, dance and guest speakers. The event, on Saturday March 20, at 3pm, will showcase young people performing music, dance and reading poetry...
Online screening of Naomi Klein film This Changes Everything and discussion
Southampton Global Justice Youth is running a free online film screening of This Changes Everything, a film by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein. The event will be held on Saturday, March 20, and is aimed at people aged under 30. This Changes Everything presents portraits of communities on the...
Suburban Safari: Bishops Waltham pond loop
by Katie Isham. Last weekend I went on holiday. Hold on, you might scream, we’re in lockdown. How did you wangle a holiday? Okay, you got me; I didn’t actually go on holiday, but I felt like I did for an hour. I embarked on a fifteen-minute drive (hedonistic,...
Experience: life as a single parent during covid
by Sarah Groszewski I became a single mother in August 2019, when I moved nearly 100 miles away from the life I’d built in London over the past 12 years, to start again in Southampton, when my marriage ended. The main thing that struck me was how much easier...
Campaign launched for single parent equality after research shows lockdown discriminatory
As children return to school this week, Ministers are facing calls to make being a single parent a protected characteristic under the Equality Act after a survey shows the pandemic restrictions heightened single parents’ experience of discrimination. In the UK today, a quarter of families are headed by a...
Swimmer gets a surprise when a seal joins him off Hampshire coast
by Sally Churchward. A keen swimmer from Hampshire found a new friend when taking a chilly dip at Lepe in the New Forest yesterday, when he was joined by a seal. Chris Balcombe has taken to wild swimming on a daily basis since the first lockdown but this is...
Heritage: The man with two gravestones
by Martin Brisland. Charles Smith lies in the graveyard of St John the Baptist church in North Baddesley. At that time, it wasn’t often a poor man had one, let alone two tombstones side by side. In the early 1800’s country gentlemen and wealthy merchants controlled society. As Justices...