Stories
Read stories by our community. Use the verse to share, heal and connect — or add your own voice below.
Submit your OwnA very ordinary woman
There is a quiet corner, well away from the main path through the cemetery, in the graveyard of All Saints Church in Orpington. There are about fifty graves in that particular section, and the headstones reveal that the earliest occupant was interred in 1932, and the...
Uncle Ernie’s contribution
In pride of place on the sideboard was a photo of a young man, in RAF uniform, proudly displaying his newly won ‘Wings.’ I asked who this was, and the silence that followed was sufficiently awkward for me to know, even at my tender age, that I should drop the subject....
Dolphin down
The tapping stopped, leaving an eerie silence. It had been banging at first but had grown weaker, very quickly. The automatic emergency lamps cast a pallid glow over the pinched, shocked faces of the shivering men scattered about the cramped compartment. Ian Gardener,...
Gurgle Gurgle
I am waiting in the hall for my mother to get her hat and coat on. The Daily Mirror is on the hallstand. In those days it was compulsory to take the Mirror – I pick it up. The date is 29th March, 1943. I smile to myself. It’s my birthday – sort of. I’m 14 months old...
Have faith
Measured in terms of church attendance, I’m a terrible Christian, but in the small Oxfordshire village of my early youth the agricultural seasons and religious festivals were all interwoven and we school children made regular trips to the church to celebrate them. The...
Dark Psychiatry
It was her silent affirmations that kept her from going completely insane. Stopped her from fading away into the nothingness of the room around her “I am here. I am here,” she repeated over and over, “I think therefore I am”. The darkness had taken her over once or...
What have you done for us lately ?
The glowing white tombstones gleamed out of the grass, like Great White shark’s teeth in green gums. A wave of female bodies moved back and forth, searching, gasping, falling, and accepting. All except one. Alice had not wanted to come here. Hers was not the role of...
Pop
When I was three, my greatest friend was Pop Figgit. He and his wife Margaret were two of the nicest people I ever met – and sixty years later I have found no reason to change my opinion. Early in 1941, their house in a south London suburb was bombed. They were...
An Appointment with Albert
In 1954 I was thirteen years old and was a pupil at Colditz. Well, Skinners’ Grammar School for Boys, as it was more commonly known. Every Thursday afternoon, everyone in the third, fourth and fifth forms was consigned to the loving care of Sergeant-Major Jock...
The Autumn offensive
The morning mist that had hung heavily over the landscape had long been burnt away by the crisp, clear streams of the autumnal mid-morning sun; which in turn had surrendered to the steady drizzle of the light rain which was now falling. It was mid-afternoon in...