Stories
Brief Encounter
If you drive north on the Golden State Freeway out of Los Angeles, the first settlement of any size that you reach is Saugus. The freeway roughly follows the line of the San Andreas Fault. As you drive, you are aware that the highway crosses and re-crosses the Fault....
A Place Of Safety. The Cup And Saucer Tree.
For more than seventy years, I have kept secret my faith in that beautiful tree, and in all that time it has never failed me. In times of great stress, and sometimes great danger, I simply climb up into its branches, letting my mind absorb its magic, and I know I am...
‘A Moment In Time’
All day the sounds of gunfire, exploding shells, screaming planes, chattering machine guns, exploding bombs - all causing death and destruction. Long lines of soldiers leaving the flimsy safety of the sand dunes, the lucky ones boarding boats, and being rowed out to...
Lost Years
The market was stilled, the stalls soulless. Sheets of yesterday’s news blew around in the chilled wind, like tumbleweed in a western ghost town. As the clock of St Martin’s church struck the hour of 5am, a solitary, stooped figure emerged from the shadows. Annie was...
Heroes, Every One
When I was a lad, (how often have we heard that phrase from our elders and betters), my heroes were not those of my peers. My mates spoke in hushed tones of Tommy Lawton, Nat Lofthouse, Johnny Haynes and, of course, the incomparable Stan Matthews. Not that I disliked...
Johnny Bennett age 8 (ish)
Don’t want to go to school. Feel sick! Don’t like Miss Prendergast, she smells, like boiled cabbage and sweaty socks. And she’s got wart, a great big one on the side of her nose. I know it’s a wart cos I had one on my finger and mam put some horrible brown stuff on...
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