Clyth in Caithness, north-east Scotland was the original source of my mother’s parents. I was seventy-seven when I felt a renewed need to drive up there. A journey I should have made years ago when I was a shade spritelier. The motivation, in 2011, was based on the research a cousin using on-line ‘Ancestry’, carried out on my mother’s parents, Jane (nee Sutherland) and James Baillie. Long-standing interest was reignited,...

I sat at the back of the hall, as far away from the blare and screech of the music as possible. Did they still call this tuneless, booming stuff music? Gone were the days when you could hear the words and whistle the tune. No way to shut out the laughter and screams of the arm-waving, drink-stoked partygoers on the dance floor. Not that I blamed their exuberance. Hell, it was New Year’s Eve. On how many such nights over t...

A nine-year-old coerced into writing thank you letters to relatives after Christmas, finds tact a problem. Dear Aunt Maude, I hope you had a lovely Christmas. Thank you for the present. Socks were just what I needed (Mom says), and such an unusual pattern. None of the other ten pairs I received had vermillion and yellow stripes. Dad says if I wear them to the school disco, they won’t need the flashing lights. We had a won...

Rain rattled on his large black umbrella, as Mark Dexter leaned over the promenade wall. It had pelted down non-stop since early that Sunday morning and looked set in for the day, accompanied by a gusty breeze. Below him, the sand was hardened all the way to the seawall. Now, the exceptional tide had receded to reveal normally unseen rocks and bladder rack seaweed that were further testament to how heavy the tide had been...

Yorke Millen sat back and viewed the letter on the desk in front of him. How, in the present circumstances, was he going to manage the next few months as temporary head teacher? Being deputy head was fair enough, the buck didn't stop with you. But now, he was standing in for Gordon Rafter, the actual head, who had suffered a heart attack just over a month earlier, and school problems were multiplying. He knew he could man...

Moving into our bungalow over thirty years ago we found that the front lawn had a variety of standard willow as a centre piece. For the first three years, the tree developed vigorously, its head getting wider and wider. No flowers, just musky green leaves. Quite ugly, we thought, and resolved to replace it. With what? That was the next question. We finally decided, given its central position, and our desire to have a flor...

When Harry met Sally, he thought, ‘Somebody up there likes me.’ Totally bewitched at finding her among the bridesmaids at her best friend’s wedding, while he was best man. Laura, his favoured pretty woman, went, but he managed only a brief encounter with Sally. With friendly persuasion, someone gave him her apartment number. After forty-eight hours, he found Ten Rillington Place. It was high noon when he arrived. Nobody h...

October 27th, 1814, and the wind blowing over the clouded northern moors had winter on its breath and darkness in its heart. Rustling over the heather, hissing through the bracken before moaning down the slopes of the natural bowl which couched the still waters of the small lake. The smooth surface of water heaved and tossed at the arrival of the devil’s wind, as the villagers called it. They knew it was the early herald...

A bright, warm May afternoon, and 79-year-old Jack Turnby stood on his drive viewing his 2002 Toyota, contemplating whether he might outlive this scarred vehicle. Purchasing a newer model had much appeal. His imminent rebellion against the so-called ‘care’ of his two darling, married daughters stemmed from many things, but each had expressed their doubts about this potential purchase.. “I know you can afford it, Dad,” Mel...

“One day, you’re going to thank God you’ve got that speed, lad.” Those were the words of old Jack Linley to eighteen-year-old Danny Friar after the young man had run a solo one hundred metres trial on grass. While Danny, in his running gear, and spiked trainers, looked on anxiously, from a distance. the old man showed the time on his stopwatch to his two back-up trainers Vic Tanner, and Sid Dawson. Danny saw some approval...

At 1.00 am on the 6th May 1941 a German bomb made a direct hit on the Apollo Picture House, reducing it to rubble. On hearing the news, I, just turned seven, cried all that day. Not the Apollo, where my visions of life, truth, or fantasy, were just coming alive. It just couldn’t be. Not the Apollo, where ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, had thrilled and delighted me, and I’d sung “Hi. Ho. Hi. Ho,” all the way home on th...

Ten years. Yes, almost exactly. Biking to school I, all big-mouthed and cocky, sped past her on my racing bike, grasping at her jet-black plait. Me, away laughing. At fifteen, a tinge of jealousy when she held hands with Norman? I would vehemently deny that. Then those birthday parties. All joking and kissing games. Our first kiss was at one of those parties. Just a game, wasn’t it? Suddenly, for me, it wasn’t. Infatuatio...

  For all her infant life and some way beyond, Jane hated the sea. It was always there in all its forms lapping gently at the rocky shores of Clyth, like some friendly faithful dog, or giving a harvest as generous as a fertile field. Yet Jane believed that below that heaving surface lurked a vicious devil-form that worked with the winds that came howling out of the north to produce mountainous waves that crashed and roare...

Scotland, the Caithness coast, specifically the fishing village of Clyth. It is the evening of January 26th, 1876. A dark chill evening. No breeze, but grassed slopes that tilt to the cliff edge, wear a veil of frost. A shadowed sea heaves, gently slapping at the rocky shore. Waiting. A single roomed fishing hamlet, no different from several scattered along the cliff tops, shelters a girl, three years old, her one-year ol...

That’s it. Breakfast dishes all cleared away. Cups neatly stacked, in the lower cupboard, Cereal bowls alongside with the plates. Now, why do I find something so menial satisfying? Oh, don’t I know the reason very well? It’s a form of security. Just like the warm aroma of my wife’s scones baking in the oven. There’s something steadfast and reassuring about that sort of thing. Fifty years or so of establishing everything i...