Category: 2015

Georgy Porgy   Mister George Lamkin carries his chamber pot to the far end of his garden. My sister Barbara and I watch from our upstairs bedroom window as he empties the pee onto his rhubarb plants and runner beans. In the summer we often wake up early and hear…

In the Gullies   In the gullies, swamp at the bottom, up to our knees in mud, my cousin and I reach high for blackberries.   We say; the sun will shine tomorrow, today we will get more than half a billycan each, our mothers will be pleased, tragedy makes…

How to Catch a Rat   ‘Get rats out of flats!’ the man has decreed. ‘Bring them to us for free beer.’ ‘Nice one Johnny,’ says India. ‘Very creative.’ I know I’m not much of a poet, but at least I made her smile. India and I are studying biology,…

Midwifery   The cloak of bees part and from one cell she wriggles, a cluster of pale light. Snub-nosed sister, the little blonde bee strokes her antennae and dances her first circle in the palm of your hand – round and round the garden. Midwife Mike murmurs there you go…

True Origins   I started my regular play-writing life out of necessity while teaching drama to teenagers. It was very hard to find scripts that suited the number of students in a class, or were engaging for young people today. So I wrote to order, taking into account what I…

1 | 2 Centrepiece   The table took up most of the room – round oak top, four solid legs curved at the knee. It must have been brought in   legless, torso rolled through three doors like a cartwheel. The surface was too good to be seen. Tablecloths changed…

The Left Bank Collage   Rebecca West wrote Black Lamb, Grey Falcon about former Yugoslavia in the 1930s. It’s a non-fiction work that combines historical research with her own experiences and observations. At its best, it brings alive the history with insight and tells as much about the writer herself.…

Chocolat   Bitter-sweet burst on the tip of her tongue, firecracker of perfect alchemy pressed to a wafer-thin wisp of devilment. Was it possible?   Had they tricked her? Chocolate was so honest in America, tainted with purity like Reese’s rule book on a high school treat. Not so  …

At the Compassionate Restaurant   When Francine Marquand took over the old Bel Cibo restaurant, she inherited not just the black walls and black interior, but two cooks, one black-haired and pale, the other red-haired and freckled, and a waitress with hair dyed orange and green. This unlikely trio she…

Writing & Tapas   A few years back I was lucky enough to spend a month writing in a small retreat just out of Barcelona. Every day I’d sit in the garden, notebook in hand, gazing at the beautiful Monsterrat mountains, trying to convince myself it was real. At mealtimes…