Stories
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Submit your OwnDear John
We were a family. Thirty young airmen thrown together in wooden hut No: 44 on an RAF School of Technical Training back in the1950s. Days of parades, kit inspections and hours of demanding study the evenings spent revising for the end of course examinations that would...
First Solo
There are many of life’s first experiences that are etched indelibly on our memory. First girl friend, first day at work, first bike ride, first ski run, first fish landed. All of these have a special place that is held in affection –or terror- or wonder. My most...
Grandpa Tom’s Limp
Even I was shocked how bad it was. I trudged through the early-summer Ayrshire rain with the school-report. My fourteen year-old spirits lifted on seeing Grandpa Tom's red Jaguar three-point-four in front of the house. My mother read in silence. After Grandpa read it,...
A lucky Man
I walked. No! I swayed across the living room remembering where the furniture was, where my wife Eve had arranged it. Lovingly arranged in the early years of our marriage. A time so long ago before that eventful day of that terrorist bomb in Malaya when a piece of...
Donnie’s fireworks
1995 Donnie Malloy was fat. He hadn’t always been fat. In fact, unknown to the majority, Donnie had been quite a hero once, a thin military hero. He’d fought his battles from Northern Ireland to the Gulf and back. Now, in his middle age, he faced a new battle, a...
Lock up your Daughters
The cold steel doors slammed closed again. I distinctly remember thinking that night that it didn’t seem like a moment since I had locked up the night before. This was always the case when living by routines and, more so perhaps, a sign of age. I double-checked every...
Wireless Ridge
( The Falklands 1982 ) We'd tabbed around the back of Mount Kent,passing the mortar positions. Some of the guys on the mortar line, had broken their ankles. This was due to the boggy ground, and the inability to get the mortars to bed in properly. So they'd stood on...
The Crown Agent’s Horse
There was a polite knock on the office door. The Naval Lieutenant Commander looked up from his paperwork and called out 'Come in!' A smartly dressed WREN opened the door and stood in the doorway. 'Chief Petty Officer Bickerell to see you, sir.' 'Oh yeh, ask him to...
Lonely march
As the years pass by, I sit in corners dark and safe Not the young carefree man of yesterday, but a lost and lonely grey man hopelessly drowning in my own thoughts, living with the knowledge of unchangeable yesterdays. I was so much but it means so little to so many...
Journey to the stars
I stand outside in my back garden. I have a glass of whiskey, it is warm from being held in my hand whilst I sat inside watching the night through the patio doors from the warm comfort of my sofa. The night sky is black crystal, perfectly clear, and yet impenetrable,...