Hartland Quay, North Devon. A place of absolute beauty. On a sunny summers day, with the tide gently splashing over the rocks, it is hard to imagine anything but a tranquil, restful scene. At low tide, however, there is much evidence of the destruction th...
“Oh no, Harriet, no! Come on now. Please don't. I've asked you nicely, so please, stop it! I really don't like it. It makes me feel kind of weird. Oh! Come on. Please, just stop! It's not funny, you know! If you don't stop I'll... Oh, Oh my gosh! No, no,...
Pictures tell a thousand stories, If only that were true. An eternity have I tried, To take a picture of you. For your beauty is incomparable, You are my heart's desire But a picture is not possible, My darling vampire.
On the twenty-eighth of October nineteen-sixty-five, the Llyn Celyn reservoir in North Wales was officially opened. Its primary purpose was to supply water for the city of Liverpool. The whole project had been steeped in controversy. To create the lake, t...
I awoke with a start but didn't dare move. Was it a dream? Had I heard a door creaking open? After a moment, I opened my eyes but remained still. In the half-light of the moon, filtering through thin curtains, I saw it and froze! It was hideous! I couldn'...
Not so very many years ago, I decided it was time for a change of holiday destination. Every December, for the past fifteen years, we had flown to Munich for the Christmas markets. How I love those visits. For the summer holidays, however, we always staye...
I had plans for my time in lock-down, today. First, breakfast and then the usual ablutions. After some dusting and cleaning, I had decided to sit down and get to grips with some writing but, the best-laid plans and all that... I was in no hurry. I didn'...
I knew he was there, he always was. Every morning when I awoke he would be there, watching me through my bedroom window. He lived next door and from his vantage point, he could see directly into my bedroom window. I didn't mind, in fact, I liked it. I did...
You could give me roses, the most beautiful of flowers, Or take me out to dinner and sit for several hours. You could buy a fancy card, filled with words of love, Perhaps a gilded cage with a single white dove. You could get a diamond ring, the one I...
Sunday morning, cold, damp and miserable. The dark rain-clouds which had, less than an hour previously, let fall a deluge of freezing rain upon the fields and hills surrounding the small Pennine village, were beginning to break. Their stark edges becoming...
Back in the spring, my husband and I went to visit a 1940s Weekend. There were many people there dressed in the fashions and uniforms of those days. There were vehicles and stalls and it really was a wonderful weekend. An escape from the humdrum repetitiv...
“Morrison!” “Yes, Sister?” “Your skirt is too short. Kneel on the desk!” Sister Bernadette, The Carmelite Nun who was head of discipline and religious studies for the girls of St. Mary Magdalene Roman Catholic High School, tapped the desk in front of me w...
Erika Hoffmann was afraid as she walked through the dark, rain-soaked streets of Eisenach, a small town just inside the border of East Germany. She should not have been out at this hour, ninety minutes after the curfew of ten o’clock which had been impose...
I awoke with a start. The trumpets were still sounding! Astrid, too, was awake and sitting upright. What was going on? Was that an alarm, were we being attacked? I leapt immediately from my bed and donned my cloak. Grabbing my bow and quiver I ran out of...
It had been hot, stifling hot and, having been stuck in her sweltering, non-air-conditioned office all day Carrie-Ann was glad to be out in the fresh evening air. It was the middle of June and England was baking in a record-breaking heatwave. Even with al...
