Stories

Diary Entry: Nov 10th. In lieu of hope, I decide there must instead be prayer. So many have lost the light in this murk. It will be a few degrees warmer than last night, we are told. The chaplain is doing visits tonight but I have declined his attention. His messages...

WAR War, once waged has an impetus of its own, and the outcome, and the manner in which it is concluded could never be envisaged while it lasts. There was no doubt that the war was all but over, the enemy defeated, depending from which side it was viewed; but the...

She had not wanted him to go to war in the first place. To her, the idea of war was an archaic and primitive one, and could only end in the complete destruction of everything for which it had begun, and the thought of her Tony being shipped right into the middle of it...

“Just look at the state of him. Good grief. What were you thinking of? This is serious, you fool.” “I’m telling you he is the best!” I replied. We both watched Hayden in the mess. Seemingly oblivious to us, he sat as always in this same position, at the same table...

A tanned eight year old boy raced across the torrid sand with only his worn thin sandals as insufficient protection. In front of him a frayed football glided like an astronaut over the surface of the moon, almost as if the desert surrounding the boy was free from the...

The boys sat cross legged in the shade. The older one wore a holed shirt, once white, now grey with the dust of rubble from the shattered house. His brother wore a man’s shirt he had found over his tee shirt. They had managed to gather some other loot from the ruin in...

"You want to know what scares me?" said Private Burns of Company G in a tentative murmur. “You want to know what keeps me up at night in this godforsaken place? It ain't death and dying. I just don't want to die all alone." On the other side of the upturned wooden...

“Come on you bleedin’ girl guides’ let’s be ‘avin’ you”, shouts sar’nt-major Kite. One of the pleasures of army life is being hollered at by sar’nt-major Kite. His big red face with his big red moustache, on his big red head sticks through the flap of our tent....

Whizzz, Bang, “blimey that one was close “ I stammered. “Na,” said eddie, “ the buggers’ are just trying to keep us awake”. “Whaddyamean Ed”. “It’s their way of stopping us getting any kip, they just lob a shell over to keep us awake, you can set your watch by ’em”. I...

The man who is going to kill me looks sad, sick and afraid. He stands a little off balance, leaning into the deed, right foot defaulting to a twitchy toe movement. He is afraid in a way we have no similes for. They always involve pi*****, sh******, soiling yourself in...

3,592 words He studied the stranger’s face in the mirror. Regardless of how many times he told himself otherwise he knew it was his own. Each individual engraved line crinkling across his face like an estuary told a story; they were a memory. He sat on the worn out...

For a million men may fall, And the world can remain, But the smallest of wars, The whole world can change. Sayid clambered nervously over the trench wall. He had been trained and tutored in the art of war, taught the principles of survival, but it wasn’t hypothetical...

Jack sat up in bed his unseeing eyes staring ahead, his dream-strangled cry fading to nothing. When he reached for the warm comfort of his sleeping wife, as he’d done for fifty-odd years after one of his nightmares, there was only the cold white sheet. You’re a crazy...

Yvette walked around the war memorial pausing to read the names on each panel. Some were familiar but the name she sought was not among them. What had become of Papa? Had he been shot for mutiny? Or cowardice? Or desertion? She sank down on the seat that encircled the...

Thirty feet of blood soaked tarmac separated the head from the body. I didn’t hear the explosion that threw me and the head across the road, you never do. Just the shockwave, that tosses you like a discarded wrapper, and slams you into the ground. Belfast was tumbling...

December. Aden 1965. An aggressively hot and dusty place surrounded by harsh grey mountains and arid tracts of sandy desert. A place too, where the hatred of the local populace for us British servicemen was a palpable force daily translated into acts of murder and...

Private Phillips hears the storms that others cannot hear. He hears the fall of raindrops, the wind whipping though the trees and the deep, distant boom and thump of thunder in far-off, unseen hills. His eyes cast ever skyward, he has become the regimental expert on...

The stone lion stood proudly outside the Cowdray Hall. The dates engraved behind it were still engrained on my brain. EElizabethabeth stood beside me, her arm hooked into mine. Some of my comrades lay a wreath of red poppies. Her lovely figure was hidden by a loose...

June 16th, 1976. I remember that day. It was on that day that I felt that teasing rush that made my fists clench. It was on that day that I felt hatred -it was tender, but scarily satisfying to feel that forbidden emotion. And I can feel it once more… …at a dangerous...

His voice: that’s what I remember most about Dad. It wasn’t in any way extraordinary, at least not as far as I can judge, but I think one cannot help but be partial about the voices of the people one loves most because it is so much a part of their being, their...

Her daddy meant the world to her. He was the strength, the pillar, the support that held her world together, but daddy was gone. He was in Northern Ireland supporting the troops that were trying to keep the peace. She didn’t understand the politics of it all, she just...

Major Jim Blackburn leant back in the canvas chair. His elbow rested on a wooden bench made of local Afghan plywood so dry it was almost desiccated. He looked at the cards in his hand. The three and four of clubs, the eight of spades, nine of diamonds and the jack of...

The candles are lit, the banners hung. The guests are arrived, the presents with them. But where’s the birthday boy? Climb the stairs, knock twice. “Young master?” Wait two heartbeats. “Sir?” Wait two more. “You’re needed.” Knock again; enter. Avert your eyes. “Young...

My grandson and I were clearing out the attic, making room for the conversion work that would provide extra space, when we found it, an old photograph of Josh. We were moving old steamer trunks full of newspaper cuttings and photo albums and we happened on one that...

At the age of 5 our mum must have had the worst possible start in life as in WW1 she lost her dad, John Sheldon. He died in Hamburg a POW on the 23rd December 1918. But her misery wasn’t to end there as in WW2 she also lost her husband Edwin Webb, this on the 30th May...

The chill wind curled it self lazily around my neck finding its way into my chest. Jack my brothers youngest, held my hand and shivered. A group of men to one side stood motionless heads slightly bowed. They’re getting less now these men from the countless small...

On 29th December, 1940, the Luftwaffe kindled the Second Great Fire of London. The first sirens sounded at 6.17pm and the last bomber cleared the City at 9.30. For three and a quarter hours incendiary and high explosive poured down onto the square mile that is the...

Julien Taine was an unremarkable boy. The only reason he was up and about so early on a Sunday morning was to collect the apples. The June morning was fine and the grass along the side of the lane was drying. Julien sauntered along towards Papelotte Farm, his untidy...

The story started in The Veterans Club, New Plymouth, New Zealand. Every story has to start somewhere, and this is as good a place as anywhere. My daughter got married ten years ago, and about five years ago, she and her Husband moved to the other side of the world to...

Sister McConochie sat in the Nurses’ Home office, going over her reports. She had some good girls under her care this year, and one or two not so good. Carol and Diana were the best of the bunch. Being a student nurse could be heavy back breaking work sometimes, and...

I’ve done it, Ma. There, what d’you think of that?’ Alfie unscrewed his hand. On his palm lay a shiny new shilling. ‘Oh Alfie, you never ’ave,’ Mrs Duggens stopped in the middle of blacking the kitchen range and stared at the coin. ‘Tell me you got it somewhere else,...

At last we had been fully equipped and trained, and were now the Guards Armoured Devision, and rearing to go into battle, with all our new supplies of Tanks, Planes fighters ,bombers, and gliders, we could now face our enemies on at least equal terms. Eventually the...

Wumpf! It was like a dull thud but it shook the house and rattled the windows. “That was a bit close,” muttered Margaret. “Are we going to die?” whispered William, nestling against her. Margaret immediately regretted her involuntary comment. “No, of course not,...

As a member of the Guards Armoured Division and advancing through Holland this incident occurred and which I still experience today. Having reached our objective for the day, we settled down for the night in and around a small farm. Everyone dug in, or selected safe...

This is a true story. Only the names of individuals have been changed to protect their identity. In 1952, I obtained an industrial training placement at a large steelworks in the Austrian city of Linz-an-der-Donau and stayed there for three months. During that time, I...

‘Oi you.’ Naively I looked up and caught the corporal’s eye ‘Yes you. Come ‘ear.’ Although I had been in the army only a matter of a few months, I had realised that I was a non-entity, just a number. In addition I had also discovered that I had the sort of face that...

Heather was cold. She pulled the two gray blankets up to cover her nose. She could feel her breath warming her face that way and it was surprisingly comforting. Mummy had said she wouldn’t be a minute, but Heather knew better. Every time the air raid warning went,...

The German soldiers arrived with the sunset, marching into the yard in a wavering line. They stood waiting while their commander spoke to Svetlana’s father. She peeped around the door frame, watching them. How straight they stood, how proud in their ragged uniforms....

It was the photograph that did it. An ordinary holiday snap of the coastline. But it was the shaft of light breaking through the winter clouds, focusing on that patch of sea that set the memories pouring back. Even in those far gone difficult days, most did what they...

The Narrative of My Only Sea Adventure (I Hope!) 11.7.1943 March 23rd 1943 Being my own personal experiences of the torpedoing of the “Windsor Castle” on that day. The day previous, 22nd March 1943, we, 2,000 troops, airmen and soldiers, had been given instructions...

( An abridged and adapted excerpt from my second Novel ) In 1914, having just completed her nursing probation at the Royal Free Hospital in London, Kitty waves her brother, Harry, and her lover, Lawrence, off to war. A few days later she begins work at the Royal...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

At eight years old, one of my jobs during the school holidays was to make a daily trip to the corner shop for my mum. I was a bit of a dreamer, was seldom in any hurry, and would chat to anyone I met. On this particular day, there was a man waiting at the bus stop,...

You know Davy he has got no luck, we are starting to call him the Jonah, how’s that I asked, what’s the script with him? Well let me tell you, you know the first drogue bombing that we had and the RUC hot spur got totalled, Ye I remember that blew a huge hole in it,...

Vietnam 1969 While stationed at Dong Tam, Viet Nam in 1969. This event took place that makes you wonder about the Military We were all sitting in a makeshift outdoor theater watching a movie provide by the Military It of all things was a war movie. All was going well...

During that beautiful sunny summer in the early days of the War, the Welsh Guards had the pleasant duty of providing the guards for the Royal Family, whilst they enjoyed their summer break at their Sandringham Home, in the county of Norfolk. This provided a pleasant...

Whilst browsing the other day, my butterfly mind wandered to the History of that beautiful city of Winchester where I once lived, I remember the old bridge over a minor road on the outskirts of the town which was known locally as “Spitfire Bridge”. Apparently on one...

Londonderry, Christmas 1978 Between 1978 and 1980, I served with the Royal Military Police in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. My unit was stationed at the old U.S. Navy base at Clooney in the Waterside, but we were responsible for patrolling within the City walls on...

Standing on the beach on the French coast at Dunkirk, dirty, hungry and totally exhausted, being alternately machine gunned by German aeroplanes and shelled by German Artillery, in that part of the war in 1940 when all seemed lost, I was completely unaware that I...