I was a big Swansea city fan, most Saturdays down at the Vetch Field watching some
good or not so football down there, and they were wanting to move to bigger and better things at the new stadium. Then they had a few good seasons at the top playing good football at the new Liberty but now we are playing in the Championship. We are doing well at the moment
Continue readingIt’s hard to let go of something when you don’t see any other choice in your life. When you love someone so much to be without them is unthinkable. There is nothing else to live for.
That is how I felt when Michael walked out on me. I didn’t know that he had been playing me, that he had other women, that all his talk had been nothing but lies.
Continue reading“It was early morning yesterday,” Mike Chaikin hummed Supertramp’s ‘Goodbye Stranger’ as he lifted one denim-clad leg over the curved saddle of his red Harley Davidson. He patted the tank, “C’mon old girl, make this a clean getaway”.
It was four a.m., and the slumbering birds lining the eaves of the Georgian cul-de-sac tucked amongst the backstreets of Llandybie barely raised an eyelid as he kicked over the engine. He checked his guitar was strapped firmly to his back and rolled the machine onto the road.
Continue readingShe was there, again, long legs and arms draped around a radiator in the reading room of the city library. With her long dark coat she looked like a spider curled up in the corner of the room. I had seen her there a few times, always at the same time of day – late afternoon. Now, it was early December. Outside, it seemed the Xmas lights were diamonds, hanging and dancing between the trees. Inside the library it was warm and dry and there was a strong smell of polish.
I had taken to going to the library most days as I wanted to look at travel guides, because I hoped to go away in January – on my own, for the first time!
Continue readingAnna peered at the ugly gnome in the elegant London house’s garden. What’s that doing there?’ She smiled at her fiancé, eyebrows raised.
‘Whatever you do, say nothing negative about that gnome. It’s Mother’s pride and joy; I’m only second-best.’
‘I think you’re perfect, darling.’ Anna was raising herself on tiptoe to exchange a kiss when the front door opened. Framed in the doorway stood a tiny, grey-haired lady.
Continue readingOnly one item of mail this morning. It appears to be a card. In February? It is a card, a Valentine’s card. Who’d be sending her a Valentine’s card? Married, on the cusp of middle-age, though that threshold has of course not yet been crossed, no indeed.
She opened it and read its one word: Mmm! Who on earth had written that? Had she a secret admirer? Her husband, Steve, was away in London with senior management. Did somebody know that and was taking advantage of his absence to send her a little cheer-up? Perhaps it was more serious? Could there really be somebody out there who’d noticed her? On the lip of middle-age? Sometimes, if she were really honest, she felt a bit of a frump, she felt she was past her sell-by-date, and sliding down a long bannister to oblivion.
Continue readingAs I sit with tears flowing down my face a small hand touched my arm, looking up into the face of my six-year old son his eyes troubled.
” Are you sad because daddy has gone to prison?”
What do you say to a boy who has been abused by that man he calls daddy. That man has taken his innocence and his childhood. I nodded.
Continue reading“Wake up Joe, come on, wake up.”
“What’s a matter, what’s going on.”
“Come on Joe, I am sorry to do this but we have had a complaint.”
“What do you mean, what sort of complaint, I ain’t done nothing wrong, let me go back to sleep.”
“Joe, you need to move on, I can’t turn a blind eye anymore.”
“What am I suppose to have done?”
“It’s not about that, I just have to make sure you clear off from this shop front.”
Continue readingThe locals call her “Eighties Kate.” She drives a Ford Cortina, her hair a tangle of permed curls and her clothes the ultimate in retro-chic.
But those who know Kate Archer will know the sad story behind her vintage style. It isn’t a fashion statement. Kate is frozen in time because she has been waiting for her husband to come home for thirty-two years.
Tom Archer has been missing, presumed dead, since he drove out to buy a late-night kebab just as the Great Storm of 1987 was gathering momentum. His car was found wrapped around the railings above the arches of Brighton beach. His body was never recovered.
Continue readingI ran here, pursued by shrieking ghouls. And it took several years to arrive. Even longer to decide to bolt in the first place.
There’s a word – bolt. I bolted doors, windows, cupboard doors and all to keep the ghouls at bay. This became my bolt-hole and later, my place of sanctuary. Later still, well I’ll get to that.
At first I was a live bundle of nerve endings. Afraid, exhausted, relieved, hurt, someone with a past but no discernable future and certainly without a plan. The new GP I signed on with was happy to offer a medicinal route out of my troubles. But I wanted to face the ghouls, not reach for their temporary suppression. I was grateful for sick notes to allow me a couple months off work. ‘Anxiety’ it said on the note, by way of explanation to my employer. Ha, and the rest, I remember thinking.
Continue readingHe placed the offensive thing upon the chopping board, the garbage guzzler was set to shred and the stove, piping hot, should sizzle closed the bleeding wound. He held a butcher’s knife in his hand and was ready to cut away his shame.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.”
Lust. The short coming of all men. Drooling gluttonous, shameless lust, caused by the enemy between their legs. Even the strictest monks still fell victim to the tumour.
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