Archive - The Immigrant Chronicles

The Language of Clothes

It was a hot summer in the hippie-dippie peace and love days of the early 1970s, and my schoolfriend Catherine and I had scraped together £35 each to…

Aug 12 •

Gabrielle Donnelly

The line in the London bookshop was several customers deep and I was the last one in it: I had been silently congratulating myself on my Brit-like…

Aug 5 •

Gabrielle Donnelly

July 2025

The Russian Aristocrat

My posh English friend was visiting town with her even posher new boyfriend, and when I invited them for lunch, I prepared myself to be on my very best…

Jul 29 •

Gabrielle Donnelly

The Meaning of Mint

My English godson Ben the Unspeakable was in town, and we met for a drink in a venerable bar in the heart of Hollywood, where I ordered a gin and tonic…

Jul 22 •

Gabrielle Donnelly

Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Queen Elizabeth II, Jacqueline Onassis, Emma Thompson, and my friend Alison.

Jul 15 •

Gabrielle Donnelly

I was on a trip to Vancouver and had stopped at a little local restaurant for lunch, where my eye was caught by the avocado salad on the menu.

Jul 8 •

Gabrielle Donnelly

My Wimbledon Summer

“Did you know,” said my student friend Susan one summer afternoon a hundred years ago as we lay in the long grass outside Royal Holloway College, “that…

Jul 1 •

Gabrielle Donnelly

June 2025

May 2025

The Queen of England

It wasn’t what you’d call a close relationship, but as pizza delivery guy and customer went, it seemed to work well enough.

May 27 •

Gabrielle Donnelly

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