Song for the Children of Gaza by Ann Reader

credit: dailysabah:UNICEF 

You believe in your God you say he is right

You say he has told you that you have to fight

With God on your side and all of his might

Do you need to kill the children?

Did he tell you to kill the children

Injure and starve the children?

Did he really say kill the children?

What kind of God kills children?

Do you think where they land when you let the bombs fall?

Are you doing God’s will? Did you answer a call

When you set out to displace them all?

Did he tell you to kill the children

Did he tell you to kill the children

Injure and starve the children?

Did he really say kill the children?

What kind of God kills children?

Do you still see the sight when you can’t sleep at night?

Of those little broken bodies in the mud

Is it their screams, you hear in your

Telling you that what you do’s not good

The ones that you kill have a God too

They’re ordinary people no different to you

No God can condone the things that you do

There’s no God would tell you kill the children

Did he tell you to kill the children?

Did he really say kill the children?

Did he tell you to kill the children?

What kind of God kills children?

Surely there is no God

 No God that would tell you

No God that would say kill

The children.

Smoke and Mirrors of Time Part 2 by Kath Norgrove

Scene from Nairobi National Museum

Rescue, however, seemed to be a long time coming, but in the meanwhile I participated in tribal life as much as I could. They seemed to be a relatively egalitarian society, with no governing hierarchy or status differences between individuals, and where children were, it seemed, reared cooperatively. They'd welcomed me in and fed me, even though I was obviously different to them. We must have been in a really isolated and hidden area, which would have explained the strangely slow appearance of rescuers. Despite the fact that I should have been panicking, I felt strangely calm and tranquil with my new-found friends.

Much of their time was spent on foraging and hunting in nearby mixed woodland – grassland habitats. Both females and males foraged in larger groups for berries, fruit, tubers and honey. Smaller groups hunted small game like monkeys and small deer, using the dispersed trees as cover or lying in wait overnight at watering holes, often using weapons and hand axes fashioned from stones and bones. I initially helped with the foraging, but later started learning to hunt.

We saw other tribes from time to time. Their obvious differences in appearance to both me and the tribe I was with convinced me that we were way off the beaten track that was unfrequented by outsiders. One tribe consisted of small-bodied individuals with a strange form of bipedal walking. They had curved fingers which were very short compared to their very long thumbs, and they were great climbers. They seemed to stick to the few wooded areas with a diet based on fruits, leaves and other edible parts of plants.

A couple of other tribes were characterised by massive teeth and skulls with flared cheek bones. One of these – the dish people, I called them - had such large cheek bones that they projected beyond the nose and upper face, producing a dish-shaped face. Some of the males had a ridge of bone running lengthwise along the midline of the top of the skull. They were capable of cracking open nuts and other hard objects with their teeth, and seemed to favour tough and fibrous plant food.

The other tribe similar to the dish people but with a robust body form had tiny peg-like front teeth and preferred sedges and grasses supplemented by termites.

There were a couple of other tribes that looked more similar to my friends. One lived on the grass land near the edge of lakes. Although they used stone tools, they used lightning or things that were already on fire to made camp fires rather than light their own. Their choice of diet was lizards, tortoises, pigs, rabbits, young antelope and fish. The other tribe were larger and more robust, with a heavier face and jaws and larger dentition, making the lower face look slightly deformed. They relied primarily on tubers but also ate meat.

Given that reliable access to sufficient food in this inaccessible area was probably low, the different tribes seemed to target different food resources so they could happily coexist. I was glad I'd been found by the ones that preferred a diet similar to my own. Sedges, grasses, tough plants, nuts and termites weren't exactly appealing.

One day, while out with a small group to hunt, I was darting from one small dispersed tree to another through the grasses when a thunderstorm came overhead and lightning struck the tinder-dry landscape around me. Before I knew it, my lungs were filling with acrid smoke and my eyes were stinging. I rang through the grasses, trying to get out of the path of the fire. I had no idea where the others were; they'd vanished and were nowhere to be seen.

Then the rain fell. Heavily. Suddenly, I stumbled through the grasses upon a group of jeeps with rangers – a search party. They were delighted to see me but admitted that they didn't think I'd still be alive, and certainly not in such good health.

“I was helped by my friends,” I responded, waving my hands in the general direction from which I'd just come.

“Come on,” said one of the Rangers, “let's get you out of here”.

Much as I wanted to say goodbye in person to my new friends, I didn't know where they were and hoped that they had found another way out. The Rangers wouldn't let me go back and look for them. I wished them a silent thanks for keeping me safe and well, and jumped into one of the jeeps.

There was a lot of fascination around my stories about the tribes. Most people thought that the tribe I was with were either San people or Hadza and the others I'd seen were ones of several hundred indigenous ethnic groups in the continent. One friend in particular, who was a researcher in human origins and accredited archaeologist, was absolutely enthralled and mesmerized about the tales I had to tell. He asked if he could borrow the hand-axe I still had with me when I'd been found.

When I asked why, he said he wanted to investigate similarities with tools made by early humans. It made sense. Little had changed for those secluded tribes.

“Sure”, I said. “But don't lose it. I made it myself and I want it as a memento of my time with these people”.

A few weeks later, he phoned me, barely able to contain his excitement.

“Where did you get your tool?” he asked.

“I told you, I made it while I was with the tribe”. I replied.

“Are you sure you didn't find it somewhere and repair it?” he persisted.

“No”, I said, “I made it myself while I was living out there. Why?” I queried.

“Well, we did some investigations and, just for fun, carbon dating” he replied.

“I can tell you it's only a few weeks old” I responded.

“Then why”, he paused for dramatic effect, “did the carbon dating age it from about 1.5 to 1.9 million years old?”.

Smoke and Mirrors of Time Part 1 by Kath Norgrove

It was never going to be an ordinary day. I opened my eyes and had no idea where I was. Take a deep breath, I told myself. Count to ten. Visualise a tropical island.... none of it worked. The feeling of utter disorientation didn't go away. I closed my eyes again. After an unmeasured length of time had gone by, I opened them, very slowly.

I was being watched by someone - or something. Her – at least I thought it was a her and decided it would be a she until I had more information - was a small chocolate skinned naked but slightly hairy human-like creature. She was much more muscular and robust than your average human, though, with much wider hips and elongated legs. She had a long, flat head and the lower jaw lacked a chin. I wondered if this was really what aliens looked like? Most intriguing of all, her face was capped by a strong, prominent brow ridge, over the eye sockets, that extended past the eyes.

She was gesturing and making cat-like noises whilst pointing to something hidden in a tree nearby. It was a large cat-like creature covered with a thick yellow-ish beige coat. It was difficult to make out exactly what it was, but the neck was thick, the chest was broad, and the legs looked short and thick against the muscular body. The most prominent feature were the elongated, curved canine teeth in its upper jaw. I froze to the spot. Should I move, or should I stay and hope I hadn't been spotted? I wasn't sure, but I reckoned I was no match for those teeth and would make a tasty snack should it be feeling a little peckish.

Just then, a bigger chocolate-skinned human-like creature of medium statue with large teeth appeared and grabbed the hand of the small one. Gesturing to me to follow – at least I hoped that's what it was doing - I followed them to a group of similar brown coloured human-like bipeds who were busy stripping a carcass clean of its meat as fast as possible. As I glanced around me, I could see why. There were a large group of more of these feline-esq pointy teeth animals sleeping under the shade of the nearby trees. There were a few of the human-like individuals on guard with spears, or axes, understandable as those curved teeth gleamed in the sun!

Maybe scavenging the remains of a felis longtoothus kill was a way for these anthropoids to get their protein. They quickly started moving away laden with meat, and given the choice of them or the teeth, I chose them.

They walked quickly; I had trouble keeping up with them. We were walking through a continuous tall grass understory. I did wonder whether there were any more of those feline type creatures lurking unseen. It was hot and dry. There was some relief from the scattered trees, but the open tree canopy did not provide much shade.

Eventually, what seemed like an age, we came into a wide valley consisting of more rolling grassland with scattered trees and shrubs, but with what appeared to be a small lake in the centre. As we got closer, I could see it was supplied by a stream from up on the valley slope, which we started following. We headed for a cluster of trees near the top of the slope, where many more of these hominines were busying themselves with collections of different types of food.

The trees under which we stood provided shelter, but were sufficiently widely spaced to see anything else that might be hiding in the herbaceous layer below them. It was a great vantage point, providing excellent views across the open countryside; we were surrounded by seemingly endless open grassland and savannah as far as the eye could see.

Which brought me back to my senses. We'd been on an overland safari and I remember passing the turning for Olduvai Gorge, the 30-mile, 90-metre deep ravine located in the eastern Serengeti Plains. We had been within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, famous for being the “Cradle of Mankind.” and home to some of our earliest ancestors. Yes, we'd been on safari! So, how the hell had I got here? Where was here? What had happened to the others I was with? My thoughts turned to my new 'friends'. Perhaps they'd rescued me?

Were these in fact a modern-day tribe of hunter-gatherers still surviving in this remote and desolate part of northern Tanzania? I remembered reading about some evidence that had been found recently for interbreeding between archaic and modern humans in the past, which might explain their different characteristics and prominent brow ridge. After all, Neanderthal-derived DNA accounted for 1–4% of modern genomes in people outside Sub-Saharan Africa, so this would be no different. I was horrified that I'd thought they were aliens, and realised I'd be safer with them than trying to find my own way back.

And were those cat-like creatures we saw earlier, a new so far undiscovered species of feline or related carnivore? Down on the valley floor, I could make out ostriches, rhinos, baboons, antelopes and what appeared to be primitive-looking deer: perhaps other new subspecies as yet unknown.

My thoughts were broken by someone nudging me. One of the females of similar height to me was offering me some small pea-sized, dark purple berries. I smiled and took them; they were crunchy but sweet and tasty. She signalled for me to follow and took me to a cave. Inside from which, I could make out smoke from a fire. A real fire built within a primitive hearth in the form of a handful of stones in a circle. Were these bona fide cave dwellers? I thought to myself. Delighted, I grinned.

There was no shortage of food, it seemed. Some of the tribe were smashing up copious amounts of the small purple berries into bowl-shaped rocks. Honeycombs from bee hives were piled in the corner. The meat that we'd bought back was thrown onto the hot embers, while tubers that resembled potatoes and turnips were tucked underneath the coals. Hollowed out orange-type fruit skins had eggs cracked into them and cooked over the fire, while fish were wrapped up in large, wide green leaves and put beside them. Even freshwater molluscs that resembled mussels and clams were being thrown into the fire and spiked with a sharpened stick when the shells opened up. The leaves from large green leafy plants were being eaten while the other food cooked, but I could see others laid out like plates. Several of the tribe were drinking from unripe, green coconuts, and I suddenly felt really dehydrated. The female who was with me handed me one, and I sipped the juice; it was subtly sweet with a nutty flavour - pleasantly fresh and extremely refreshing.

After a filling feed, I was given a skin on which to sleep. The fire as well as providing warmth created a social space. It also provided a defence against biting insects and would have scared predators, meaning we were pretty safe sleeping around it. Despite being in the middle of nowhere without any means of contact with those on my trip, I felt I would be safe here until rescue came.

Kate Makes a Big Decision by Ann Reader

credit: Gencraft

The hours of study Kate fitted in around her work culminated in her Sergeants' exams and now she awaited the result. Kate arrived at the CID office that morning to an email requesting her to meet with the Super at 10. She was fairly sure she would now find out the worse. It was with some trepidation she knocked on his door.  She had done her best but would that be good enough.

“Congratulations Sergeant Chalmers, you’ve done this station proud. Very high marks! Well done.” Kate felt herself go weak at the knees with relief.  “Come and sit-down Sergeant now we’ve got to decide what to do with you! The situation at present is this: we don’t have a vacancy in this station for a Sergeant in CID. There will be one coming up in uniform in about 6 months, it’s no secret that Sergeant Carter will be retiring later this year.  You could apply for that and hope a CID vacancy comes up. Likewise, you could just stay as you are until a vacancy appears.  Don’t get me wrong, we don’t want to lose you, you’ve been a very valuable member of our team, but I think you are ambitious, and you’ll want to progress.”

Kate felt the elation draining from her. She had concentrated so hard on passing the exams she hadn’t given much thought to what would happen next. She didn’t want to return to uniform.  That would mean a move away from her personal crusade against the drugs that had killed her younger brother, her motivation for joining the police force in the first place.

“There are always Sergeants’ jobs going in the Met if you fancy a move to London, and I expect it’s the same in other big cities,  it goes without saying that we would give you an excellent reference.” The Super continued. 

Kate didn’t really want to move, not permanently.  She had found friends and amazingly her brother’s child.  She wanted to watch little Andy grow up.  She struggled to prevent her dismay showing on her face.

“I have got another suggestion to make to you,” he smiled, and Kate felt she was being set up for this. “I would like to put you forward for a special operation.  It’s a multi-agency investigation involving the customs and excise, the home office, the harbour master and ourselves.  We believe that drugs, illegal immigrants and duty-free tobacco and other goods are being imported through Southampton. From the police side we are looking for officers to work undercover. You have done a little undercover work, and you have never worked in Southampton so you could be suitable. 

“The person recruited for this part of the operation would have to live in Southampton for the duration of the operation.  It’s not a permanent move and you would still remain answerable to this force. You would receive pay on the Sergeant’s scale and accommodation will be found for you. It will not be salubrious.  Although you will receive decent pay it will be paid into a secret account which can be used to pay your mortgage up here and other commitments.  In Southampton it is essential that you appear to be short of money.  You will be working as an invoice clerk in the shipping office.  The wages are low and will in part be deducted from the salary paid into your account up here.  If you are accepted for the role, you will be given training in the work of an invoice clerk and a credible back story. Your role will be to watch and report back but also to appear strapped for cash and not too bright. The hope is that you will be recruited by the criminal gang and be able to supply us with information as to how money is moved as think the invoice department at the port may be being used.

“It’s not known how long this investigation will take, so you will be allowed a trip back here roughly every six weeks provided it is not likely to jeopardise the operation.  It means you will still be able to maintain some ties here, but you will not be able to have any regular contact such as phone calls or texts. We will provide a pay as you go phone in the name you will be using.  You may not give the number to friends or family.  You will be required to leave your own mobile here. You may tell family you are on a secret operation but not where and they will not be able to visit you. 

“It can be very lonely doing this kind of work Kate, it may also be dangerous, although as many safeguards as possible will be put in place, but there is a lot of money at stake. I advise you to discuss it with those closest to you on a very outline basis before you decide. Having said that we are under pressure to get this operation up and running so I would ask you to let me know as soon as possible.  If you decide I should not put you forward for this, I will be asking you to forget we have had this conversation. 

“Now is there anything else you need to know to make your decision?”

TO BE CONTINUED ...

January 2025 Meeting

Minutes of Quarterly Meeting Saturday 11^th January 2025

2 – 5pm in Bridgnorth Library Meeting Room, Listley Street

Present: Michele, Irena, Toli, Andy, Emma, Ann, John, Ruth, Adam, Kath, Marie, Sue, Jennie, Liz (chair)

Apologies: Suzie, Fiona, Esme, Stuart

We welcomed 14 people to our first quarterly meeting half of whom were members who have been finding it difficult to attend regular meetings held on the fourth Tuesday evening of every month. We were especially happy to welcome Toli from Bridgnorth Writers to our workshop.

It cost £42 to hire the room but shared between us that worked out as £3/head.  We decided to continue with the experimental 2025 quarterly meetings. The next one will be Saturday 12^th April. The summer meeting will be Saturday 12^th July and the autumn meeting Saturday 13^th October. Please note the dates in your diaries. We noted that the dates will not suit everyone but hope that at least 10 – 14 or more people will be able to attend.

Nineteen people (members and some partners) have signed up for our delayed 2024 annual meal which will be at Peepo’s on Tuesday 28^th January. It will be instead of our usual monthly meeting. Liz will confirm the booking and Jennie will organise menu choices if Peepo’s so wish. Let Liz, Jennie or Peepo’s know if you want to attend the meal but have not yet signed up.

As there will be no more workshop meetings this January, the February writing task was shared with members. It is:

‘Choose any book. Turn to Chapter 5. Open the 5th page of Ch5 and count down to the 5th line. Use that line/sentence as your writing prompt.’

The next full workshop meeting will be on Tuesday 25^th February, at 7pm in Peepo’s Spirit Room. John A-S will be chairing.

We had some discussion about how best to respond to members' writing. Ann urged people to leave short comments about the writing which is shared on the blog and Ruth (and others) urged those of us who want a more in-depth commentary on their writing to circulate a passage of their work before meetings so that people can share their thoughts privately and perhaps mark-up comments on the ‘Word’ document. We agreed to send an email to regular attendees which is not BCC’d so that members can communicate directly by email without going through the ‘hightownwriters@gmail’ email hub. Liz will facilitate that with the minutes of this meeting.

We began our writing workshop with a review of many of the forms of writing preferred by our members. Poetry and Fiction emerged as the most used forms and there was some discussion about poetry sparked by Marie – if it doesn’t rhyme it doesn’t sound like a poem – Marie later inadvertently wrote a poem which didn’t rhyme without realising it! Michelle reminded us of the poetry which characterises the liturgy of religious texts. Some of us, Emma, Toli, Ann and others are writing novels whilst others prefer the short story form. We had some discussion about what constitutes ‘flash fiction’ – would that include our monthly writing task with a 1,000 word limit? When we talked about the non-fiction (mainly scientific, travel and diary writing) members share, Emma introduced the discipline of ‘creative non-fiction’ which was new to most of us. We hope she might lead the autumn October quarterly workshop on this topic. Drama and Screenwriting are not often tackled by our members but newer members were very interested in reviving the performance of Jennie, Kay and Val’s dramatization of ‘The House in Dormer Forest’ which just before Covid was rehearsed to specially written music but not performed.

We moved on to discuss our current writing theme ‘LIGHT’. Each person contributed very different thoughts on the topic ranging from the scientific and astronomical to the emotional and sacred noting the imagery of light in every culture in so many contexts, including logos such as that of Amnesty International. We then moved on to our first warm up writing exercise, an old favourite, the word maze. But we tried to include light references and light imagery in our writing. Our word maze word choices were – explosion – bright - snow – blank - Gaza - time-travel - tree -   tricycle – birthday – cups - horse – dog – green - daffodil. We wrote for twenty minutes and then stopped for tea, coffee and biscuits. Some of the results of this warmup exercise will be shared on the blog over the next few weeks. As usual they were very varied and quite brilliant.

After reading our warm-up writing we moved on to opening one of Liz’s Christmas presents – a bottle of ‘Writer’s Block’ tablets from the Poetry Pharmacy in Bishop’s Castle. Inside each tablet we discovered quotations from various famous writers and poets, which we read aloud and wrote short poetic responses to – some in the form of haiku. Hopefully some of those responses will be developed and shared on the blog. By then the time was 16.45, it was dark, and with the freezing fog closing in outside members felt like making a move home. Sadly, we decided to postpone reading and responding to writing which people had brought along, to until the next proper workshop meeting in February.

We washed up, locked up and look forward to 2025 and another year of writing.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

TODAY - 2-5pm

The Octopus by Kath Norgrove

Photo by Janayara Machado on Unsplash.com

Swimming in the Mediterranean Sea
The Common Octopus is a sight
But if it tickles you with its tentacles,
You might get a nasty fright!

Seeing those large eyes
With its massive bulbous head
Appearing from the gloom
It did fill me with dread

One of its little charms or not
Which it uses to search and grab
Is its eight distinctive suckered arms
Seeking out crayfish, mollusc and crab

It can hide in plain sight
Lurking in the murky depths close by
Matching surrounding colours, patterns, and textures
Then emerging to terrify

It has venomous saliva and
Beaklike jaws, that can deliver a nasty bite
Used mainly for subduing prey
I know that now, but in hindsight

They are considered the most intelligent of invertebrates
In tropical and temperate waters, they are found
They can grow to just over a metre
And weigh up to 22 pounds

It had startled me, appearing suddenly
Though now I think it just came to say hello
As curious as the land puss
But I just had to go

I'd been to Svalbard in July
A birthday treat for me
I'd dipped my toes and submerged myself
In the icy cold Arctic Sea

I hadn't stopped in for long
It had been absolutely freezing
A small iceberg had floated by
And I came out screaming

Fast swimmers, Octopi can jet forward
But not as fast as me
Departing from the water, up the beach
Quicker than from the polar sea!

Morning Symphony by Kath Norgrove

The chorus began with a variety of wheezy notes from the Greenfinch, intermingled with a repetitive 'too-eee' and a loud twittering trill. The base tone of the Wood pigeon 'Orr-oo-oo' came on in the background, while the Collared Dove took up with a harsh, excited 'coo-oo-cuk'. The Blackbird provided a beautiful mellow song, a slow clear warble that tailed off at the end, while the Grey Wagtail provided an accompanying quiet melodious trilling. The rains started to come and it went quiet.

The Light by Ann Reader

credit Gencraft

Here it was, at last ! The light I  had held in my mind for such a long time,  the thing that kept me going even when I felt too hungry to walk and my paws were too sore. That little square of light that was a door to warmth and comfort,  security and love. Oh how I had missed those things.

My troubles began through my own curiosity.  I had climbed into a large van to investigate all the things that were being carried out of the neighbouring house.  Suddenly the door had closed and I was shut in the dark. The engine noise stopped anyone from hearing my desperate meowing and scratching.  The noise and movement lasted for a very long time , when it stopped I shot out of the door as soon as it opened.  To my horror I couldn’t recognise anything,  I had no idea where I was.

I spent a night or two hanging around that area but the people who once lived next door to my people did not seem to recognise me.  I realised that if I wanted to get home I would have to do it for myself.  I don’t really understand why but I felt sure I had to head south so I did that for days and days.  I had to stop to hunt for food.  I had managed to get my collar off onto a bush when I realised it was warning the birds and other small creatures of my presence. Hunting for food was quite different to the play hunting I used to do at home when it didn’t matter if I actually caught anything.  I found I was not that good at it and I often went hungry.

Once a nice lady put food out for me when she saw me lurking in her garden for a few days.  I had got a thorn in my paw and though I got it out I needed time to recover before I could walk again.  I stayed a few weeks,  I think she would have let me move in but that little square of light that meant home to me kept me moving on.

I did go through other cat flaps , sometimes I stole cat food sometimes even human food if it was lying around.  Sometimes I was attacked and driven out by the cat whose house it was. Sometimes the flap remained shut when I tried to get in, even though I saw other cats go in, I didn’t understand that.

Slowly with a number of breaks to give my paws a chance to heal I made my way south. I couldn’t tell how long it took me but i know I survived two winters outside.  One day I found myself outside a big place where people went in and out pushing trolleys. There was a cat getting fed there but he had a home.  As soon as he left and it went quiet I moved in on the trays of food.  Once upon a time I would have refused this cat food.  These days I was so hungry I relished it. I hung about there several days hiding in some bushes.  Then I heard some voices that sounded just like my people.  They got into a car before I could go to them but I knew I was nearly here.

Now I had found it,  that little square of light that meant everything.  I felt unaccountably nervous now my long journey was nearly over. Would they recognise me?  would there still be a place for me?  Would they have got another cat? I gently nosed the door open.  The girl was in the kitchen she called her mother.  They seemed to be debating whether they knew me. I could smell the dog food but where was the dog and where was my plate of food. Then the dog bounded in and put his paws forward in the way he always had since he was a puppy and I was a kitten,  when he wanted to play.  He knew who I was,  I launched myself at him in the old way we used to play. It felt good I had not had the leisure to play for a long time.

“It is Mr Whiskers, “I understood the name they used.“ I don’t believe it!  He’s been gone nearly three years and last we heard he was near Leeds when someone found his collar and rang us! But it must be him." I didn’t understand that part but suddenly I was picked up and petted , I was given a plate of delicious tinned fish. I knew  I was home! The memory of that little patch of light had kept me going and I knew I  was never going to give in to curiosity again.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! - NEXT WORKSHOP is next Saturday 11th January 2-5pm: Bridgnorth Library

 Looking forward to seeing all Hightown Writers at our first quarterly weekend workshop meeting trial.

Writing Theme for January: The Light

Winter Aconites by Val Pedrick

 This piece of writing first appeared on the blog in January 2021

credit: Wikipedia

 snagged flurries

veil an old pear tree

with the suffocating

shroud of a final winter

 

ebony talons

rake brooking skies

search for borrowed blue

scraps of summer

 

gnarled digits

knuckle ivory drifts

clutch golden goblets

of mulled memories

 

frosted branches phantom

sprigged spring blossom

through snow’s coverlet

gilded promises gleam

 

Winter Aconites

brighten dark days

their glowing lanterns

herald new beginnings 

(Val Pedrick nee Plante: first published 2003, edited 2014)

Wildcat Watcher by Stuart Hough

 This piece of writing first appeared on the blog in 2022. 

Writing inspired by a line from another book:

 "How delightfully amusing everyone was! ‘Bottle of mine, it’s you I’ve always wanted…’ ."

Aldous Huxley. Brave New World.

A loud peal of laughter followed from the knot of men gathered around the speaker. The fragment of conversation was meant to be heard by others.  No doubt he wished to be seen as being humorous and entertaining from within the gathering of his peers. No one else looked around. The language used didn’t fit the man. It was a gesture without real foundation, fashioned for the surroundings. The men carried on their own conversations, drinking wine in their own groups. It seemed that ale was not allowed. More than likely their hostess deemed it suitable only for those who did not aspire to the positions for which she wished her guests to aspire. Despite the luxurious furniture on which they were seated earlier, the men had now chosen to stand in groups. No doubt their hostess would think them ruffians for doing so. They tried not to spill anything on the expensive floor.

She had managed to extract herself from the room, but now reluctantly returned. She stood at the edge of the gathering and wasn’t in a hurry to re-join any of the conversations. She had heard the exclamation. The irony of it made her smile. She wasn’t good in situations like this and she knew it. She had spent most of her life trying to avoid any form of gathering where she did not have a genuine personal interest. She longed for her ‘own’ people. She wanted nothing more than to do the same thing, but around an open fire with people she loved and trusted. Still, she thought. There she was. There she was and she would not drink much, she decided. Although, the temptation to lose herself in the solace of the red liquid she carried, was strong.

She looked across the room, taking in who had migrated towards whom. Conversations were unnaturally loud, with everyone trying to impress everyone else. Their smiles were like too much salt, in a plate of favourite food. A dash would have been sufficient. Apparently appetising, the unseen made it almost unpalatable upon tasting. Such a waste. She took a sip of wine. It was good, albeit polluted by the disingenuous air of those gathered that day. She felt that she could reach out and pull large handfuls of hypocrisy and insincerity from the same, cloying air. False charm dripped like candle fat.

She caught sight of their hostess, who was the only other woman in the room.

Kate's Second Christmas by Ann Reader

Kate was looking forward to Christmas this year.  She was not going to be at work and had arranged to spend it with Kiera and Georgia and her nephew Andy who was now 5. She went to bed on Christmas Eve satisfied that all her presents were wrapped and she could have a lie-in on Christmas Day.  She was therefore surprised when her phone woke her at 1 am. 

She recognised the DI's voice. 

“Kate,” he began, “I’m really sorry to wake you but we have a bit of a problem here. It would seem that a drug related gang war broke out tonight outside Martine’s. Uniform got to the scene really quickly and seems to have arrested everyone in sight! The big problem is that they found a body in the gents in the club and there are at least two serious knife injuries amongst those fighting.  At the moment we don’t know if the body is connected to the fracas that was going on outside or separate. Homicide is investigating but want input from us.  I’m loathe to cancel your leave, I know you worked last year but I’m struggling to find people and we are really short with so many off for Xmas, so I suppose I am begging you?”

Kate was already struggling into her clothes this was a challenge she couldn’t resist.  She would have to find time to ring Kiera in the morning.  She would make it up to Andy later.

The situation at the station was fairly chaotic.  The custody suite was full to overflowing and suspects were being lodged at smaller stations on the outskirts of town until everyone could be interviewed.  The decision had been taken to interview overnight unless a suspect actually asked to have their rest period.  It was always a risk that a clever lawyer would use that later to try to keep the interview record out of court but with so many people wanting to get home to be with their families in the morning it seemed the best way forward.  Clearly some of those arrested were, if not innocent, then, at least marginally involved and may end up being witnesses rather than suspects. 

Kate, along with the other drug squad members who had come in, was given a list of names and asked to identify any she knew to be involved with drugs. Those were held back as were the ones who were clearly under the influence of alcohol, and then teams were set to interview all the unknowns.

The interviews all followed the same format as far as possible.  The suspect was asked where they were arrested, what they were doing at the time, where they had been throughout the evening, what they had seen and whether they had had any involvement in the violence intentionally or otherwise.  This strategy was successful in weeding out a number of people and in getting a clearer idea what had happened.

By 6 am the number in custody had been reduced to a level the custody sergeant found acceptable.  Those who were not known to Kate’s department or who had only a small amount of class B drug, mainly cannabis, were given a police caution and released.  Those with a smaller amount of a more serious drug or those already known to the drug squad were released on police bail to return for further investigation at a later date. Some of those arrested had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, appointments were made for them to give witness statements. 

Kate had been chosen to interview Jimmy Taylor, known to have been one of Ricky Summer’s henchmen before that local dealer was sent down for his involvement in importing drugs in the summer.  Jimmy was not found in possession of any drugs and indeed had not registered on the drug squad radar since Ricky’s arrest. He nevertheless had a history of involvement and a reputation for violence. 

He was arrested running away from the nightclub and claimed he had simply been in for a pre-Christmas drink. He had noticed a couple of groups getting a bit leery with each other but claimed not to know any of them.  He was also adamant he did not see or know anything about any drugs being dealt in the club.  Kate did not believe a word of it. She was certain that someone would be trying to step into Ricky’s shoes as main local dealer and fairly sure that the fight was between rivals for the position. Jimmy did give the information that just before he left the club he had gone to use the gents but had found the door either locked or held closed. He had a feeling that someone was in there and that it had not been locked by the management.  He knew he could use the loos at the bus station so did not make an issue.  He was given police bail with a condition to reside at his given address.

Kate was give permission to go home and get some sleep but a request was made for her to return to the station to help go through the CCTV evidence from the club, the town centre, bus and railway stations. She agreed to return at midday. That would give her time for some sleep and a quick visit to Kiera’s to give Andy his present and watch him opening and playing with it. She texted that she would get to Kiera’s for 11 o’clock and that she would have to miss Christmas dinner, set her alarm and fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. 

When she got back to the station the investigation had become more focused.  One of those injured outside the club had died in hospital.  The knife had done irreparable organ damage. There were two schools of thought, some believed the body in the gents was unrelated, others thought it was all part of the same turf war. It was possible that the fight outside was revenge for the first killing.

The body in the gents had been identified as Robert Caswell a local car mechanic with no known involvement in the drug scene, which was a puzzle.  It was decided that his death would be investigated separately but that the investigations would run in parallel until it was established whether or not they were connected.  

The body at the hospital was Jason Harman, well known to the neighbouring drug squad but only briefly spotted locally until very recently.  Clearly a contender for Ricky’s business. The other man in hospital with serious knife injuries was still unconscious and the police would not be able to speak to him for some time. Several of the people held in custody had been treated by the Force Medical Officer for minor injuries. One or two were experiencing drug withdrawal most had hang overs and were yelling about the unfairness of being held on Christmas Day. 

Once she had looked at the detainees for recognition purposes Kate was glad to escape the pandemonium to sit in the CID office and view video evidence. 

The footage from the nightclub did indeed show two groups who appeared to have some issue with each other, it was also clear,  in spite of Jimmy’s protestations that members from both groups were dealing drugs. Kate’s experienced eye soon closed in on the surreptitious passing of small packages and palming of notes. In fact, it seemed quite blatant.  She recognised two or three faces in one group that she privately designated ‘the home team’. She could not however identify the person she considered to be directing operations. 

She could pick out members of the ‘other team’ who were dealing but could not identify them.  She took screenshots and emailed them to the drug squad in the neighbouring force from where the deceased was thought to originate.  

She went to her DI with a screenshot of the new person.

“Sir I think we have a contender for Ricky Summer’s business.  He was conducting operations just as Ricky used to, but I don’t know who he is. He’s not registered on our radar before, but he seems to be using Ricky’s network of street dealers. I wonder if anyone in custody would be willing to give us his name?” 

The DI agreed to pass the screen shot to the interview teams.

Kate returned to  CCTV viewing. The mystery man kept himself on the side-lines and disappeared when the two groups began to get leery with each other.  Kate was able to pick him up on the town centre camera and later on the bus station camera where, by great good fortune, she was able to see which bus he boarded. They could get a rough idea of which area he came from. 

The neighbouring force replied with ID for three of the four screenshots Kate had sent over. Two of those and the unidentified one were in custody. She relayed the information then returned to her task. The next camera she chose was back in the club it showed the corridor to the gents and the exit onto the street beyond.  She felt a frisson of excitement as she watched her unidentified dealer follow another man, who could have been the dead guy found there, into the gents, they were clearly arguing with each other.  She had only seen the postmortem photo of the deceased and found it difficult to be certain. A few minutes later she saw Jimmy go to the door and fail to gain entry. If she was right her unidentified dealer had not left the club when he had disappeared from the dance floor and was very likely the murderer they were looking for.  It also meant that the fight outside was probably a result of the attack. 

She raced off to the DI with this.  In the meantime, one of the detainees had cracked and revealed the identity of the mystery dealer.  Bryan Summer, Ricky’s cousin, no wonder he had been able to take over Ricky’s network, doubtless Ricky had given him all the information he needed to mind the business while he was inside . A team was sent to arrest him for murder.

Other officers were viewing the camera footage from outside the club and were clearly able to see the knife fight. It appeared that only the two with knife injuries were carrying weapons. All the others were simply involved in fisticuffs.  What had looked like total chaos in the early hours had in fact been solved very quickly. 

Kate was thanked and praised for her quick thinking in piecing it all together and sent off duty.  The homicide team would handle it from there.  The DI however left her in no doubt that her promotion prospects had been greatly enhanced by the day’s work.

She made it to Kiera’s just in time to read Andy a bedtime story. They had saved her a Christmas dinner and there were presents for her to open.  All in all, it had been a very satisfying Christmas day.

We Can Follow That Star - A Carol by Sue Akande

  This piece of writing first appeared on the blog in December 2020. 

The Three Magi by John Bowler

Three Magi saw something diff'rent that night.

Glimmering bright,

A guiding light.

Overjoyed and inspired by what this could mean,

They followed that star.

Oh how wonderful, that those men from afar,

Followed that star.

To Bethlehem the star lit their way,

And there in the hay,

A baby lay.

In homage they gave their gifts to the Prince.

Of God, Frankincense and Myrrh.

Oh how wonderful, that those men from afar,

Followed that star.

The babe was a gift to all humankind.

A love divine,

Yours and mine.

Bringing peace and joy to all the world,

Beneath that Bethlehem star.

Oh how wonderful, that those men from afar,

Followed that star.

And how wonderful,

That wherever we are,

Whoever we are, 

We can follow that star.

Christmas Long Ago by Jennie Hart

 This piece of writing first appeared on the blog in December 2022. 

I hear my grandson singing ‘Away in a Manger’ and I want to cry; those ancient long remembered tunes are full of nostalgia.

Early family Christmases were often spent with Grandma Verity in Hull. My Grandad was there too but quietly in the background. Christmas eve was exciting yet I was terrified of catching sight of Father Christmas who may not leave presents if I spotted him. As soon as I was tucked up in bed, Grandma would ring the tiny tinkling bell on her mantel piece a few times; I knew its tone because sometimes, she let me shake it but on Christmas Eve I would ignore the familiarity and believe it was the Christmas sleigh. If I heard a stealthy tread on the carpet, I buried myself beneath the covers until all was silent then slept till morning, dreaming of reindeers and walky-talky dolls. 

Christmas in my own home was hectic and exhausting. Dad was irritable and moody and we never knew if he would join us for dinner. He had a sitting room upstairs where he would play music on his radiogram, read ‘Tailor and Cutter’ and live like a hermit. As we grew older, my brother and I gleaned from his reminiscences, the reason for his misery at this time. He had lived in deprivation and rarely owned shoes. Even after leaving school and carrying out deliveries of medicines for a doctor, he had none. He also told how each night he used to bang his bed to scare away cockroaches. He was abused in his teens, by his older sister and two older brothers.

His mother my Grandma Kitt, was a lay-preacher’s daughter but I never knew her husband, my grandad, a seaman in the merchant navy who died before I was born. They had five children and because of her poverty grandma would pawn grandad’s clothes when he was away at sea. If he came home unexpectedly and found his suit missing, he would thrash my grandma and break up the home. The first thing my father did when he had saved a little money, was to decorate and furnish a room for my grandma. 

Mum had a grocery and sweet shop and Christmas Day was her only day off. Even then, customers came to the back door asking for last- minute items; packets of Paxo stuffing, Bisto gravy or oxo cubes. She was renowned for her kindness and would never refuse a customer.

Boggle Lane was once the address of our shop before the railway came. The house and shop, a long low eighteenth century building, had been in the family since the mid-nineteenth century and is still there today.

Before it was a shop, it was described in historical accounts as a ‘rooming house’ and is one of the oldest premises in the town. The long narrow garden which ran along one side of the house was once part of Boggle lane and the gravel and rubble from the lane lies buried below the turf and garden borders. When the railway was built in the late nineteenth century its track cut across Boggle lane blocking its route, so the length alongside our shop could no longer serve as a street and became the garden. The northern end of Boggle Lane was the other side of the railway and was eventually built over.

Boggle is an unusual name for a lane but it was so-called because there was once a well there.. Boggle, bogle or bogill is the Northumbrian and Scots term for a ghost and boggles were often associated with water. I am glad I didn’t know this as a child because my dreams were haunted by ghosts, because of the tales my father told. He used to tell of a phantom old woman who live in his sitting room and how she had once passed him on the stairs. The door to that room was at the top of the staircase and each night I would hold my breath and rush past it and along the landing, to the safety of my own bed. I once had to sleep in that sitting room on a makeshift bed, when a visitor was given my bedroom, and I experienced absolute fright when woken by inexplicable creaking noises. In the morning it was clear the sideboard door had decided to voluntarily open.

Mum was usually exhausted on Christmas Eve once she had closed the shop. When the cashing-up was done, I used to help her hang the decorations; there were garlands and lanterns, gold and bright and showy and I looked forward to them each year. The ceilings were low and if mum stood on a chair she could arrange the streamers in uneven loops across the small room. They were uneven because she had to feel for the beams in the ceiling in which to push the drawing pins. 

Mum bought presents but often didn’t have time to wrap them. My dad played no role in these preparations except for buying whisky and stocking his cocktail cabinet. This was an art deco work of art in smooth polished walnut but I didn’t recognise its value then. I do  re-call one year wrapping my own presents because of my disappointment the previous Christmas that nothing was wrapped. For children it’s the anticipation of the present within that makes the opening special.

Grandma Kitt bought me the Daily Mail Annual every year and my beloved story of all time was ‘When Father Christmas tore his trousers’. In the tale, Red Riding Hood generously parts with her red cloak to patch the tear and a helpful tree-fairy finds a sewing kit among the gifts and carries out the repair. I recently discovered the story appeared in The Daily Mail Annual of Christmas Nineteen fifty and it’s author was Heather Moorfield. I was only four years old so an early reader, taught by my great Uncle Harry, a tailor who lived with our family. Another year my paternal grandma bought me a mottled brown mechanical tortoise from my uncle’s toy shop; it was pneumatic and when I squeezed a rubber bellow connected to it by a hose, it crawled along in a life-like plodding fashion.

This year, in the strangest of summers I sowed seeds of Origanum marjorana or sweet marjoram, in a sunny spot and once it was leafy and before it flowered, I harvested the foliage and hung it in bunches to dry. A few weeks later, I rubbed the grey foliage between my fingers and inhaled the sweet aromatic smell of this beautiful culinary herb. I learned this from my mother. Towards the end of summer mum would buy armfuls of sweet marjoram from a customer and hang the fresh stems in attractive posies around the kitchen to dry. I loved that magical aroma and for me it foretold of Christmas to come. Mum didn’t use sage and onion to make turkey stuffing; instead she used sweet marjoram along with onions, suet, and breadcrumbs. Some of this was used to stuff the turkey but the rest was baked in a tray in the oven and was called Savoury Pudding.

Savoury Pudding turned a feast into a banquet when accompanied by chestnut stuffing made from freshly roasted chestnuts, butter and onions. Fresh cranberries were also an accompaniment, simmered to succulence and deliberately allowed to be retain their tangy piquancy to contrast with the sweeter meat and vegetables. Usually, as dinner was about to be served, the door from the enclosed ghostly staircase would open. It was never a ghost, just the figure of my father, roused by the sumptuous cooking smells filling the house. He would pour a Glenfiddich’s whiskey, hand round the Sobranie Black Russian (he never smoked himself, just kept them for guests) and settle by the fire. With a whisky in his hand, he became a different person. He was a working-class man with only a weekly wage, but somewhere along life’s path, he had acquired the tastes of an aristocrat. He wasn’t boastful and never tried to impress but had a vision of a life that might have been but which wasn’t meant for him. But on Christmas day, he could imagine ...

                                                      Mum's Shop on Boggle Lane

God Jul 2010 by Elizabeth Obadina

 This piece of writing first appeared on the blog in December 2022

The snow had fallen thickly overnight. All along the street the houses were draped in festive lights, twinkling LED icicles and sparkling stars. There was nothing gaudy, no blow-up Father Christmases, no Christmas strobes piercing the starlit sky, no pulsating light shows. Nothing like that for this was Norway where, at the beginning of December, most Norwegian homes hang a star-shaped lamp in their windows, called “Julestjerne” or “Adventsstjerne” to symbolise the Christmas star which had guided the three wise men to the baby Jesus. There were also red, wooden candelabras with seven electric candles placed in other windows  to provide comforting beacons of light throughout the long dark nights of the northern mid-winter. They are now quite common in the UK but not so in 2010 when we enjoyed our first everyone-together family Christmas in Norway.

On this Christmas morning our house was slowly waking up.  Although it was nearly 9am it was still pitch dark outside and our baby grandchildren had yet to reach the age of waking up in frenzied excitement early, early, oh SO early on Christmas morning to check whether Santa had paid them a visit. That joy was yet to come in future years – mainly in England. This year was a magical one: watching the two-year old’s wonder of all things Christmassy, enjoying the baby’s discovery of wrapping paper and most of all feeling so happy and contented as the littlest ones of our family basked in the love and attention of newly met uncles and aunts. We were all together, and later on that day our ranks would swell with the hustle and bustle of visiting Norwegian grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. But as we stood looking out of the window, cradling cups of breakfast tea and waiting for the sun to rise all was calm and very peaceful.

On cue, two deer walked sedately up the middle of the street. They left deep tracks in the freshly fallen snow.

Theirs were the only tracks; there were no tyre tracks, no footprints and no one shoveling snow. On this magical Christmas morning there was nothing to disturb them reclaiming their old haunts, for forests came down to the back of our daughter’s home, and the wildlife displaced by house building had to live alongside new neighbours in new houses. These deer were making their way home to their forest before any human neighbours got out and about.

This Christmas morning most of those neighbours – and their cars - were slumbering late in contented rest, for all their celebrations had already happened late on Christmas Eve. For everyone else Christmas had finished and “romjul” had begun, a somnambulant dream-time for resting and doing nothing until the New Year and returning to work and school. It was only us Brits who were running late with our Christmas celebrations.

On Christmas Eve our Norwegian neighbours had gathered for their Christmas meals of roast pork with the crispiest crackling (ribbe) with loganberry jam, creamed potato and swedes and spicy red cabbage. Gingerbread houses had been broken and eaten. Marzipan sweets consumed and copious amounts of ‘Glog’ knocked back. 

At midnight Julenissen (Santa Claus) had come knocking at everyone’s front door, magically at every front door in the whole of Norway at the same time. Excepting at one house, where, unable to find his red and white outfit, and possibly suffering from an excess of festive aquavit spirit, Santa Claus had had to use the Darth Vader outfit left over from the North Pole’s Halloween party. The children he visited as Darth Vader had been terrified. They had sobbed and screamed and no matter how many Christmas presents ‘Darth Vader-Julenissan’ had brought for them, they were inconsolable, probably scarred for life. But that’s another (true) story for another time.

In 2010 we had welcomed our second grandchild, a little boy. This was his first Christmas and his sister’s third. His mother, my daughter, had invited both sets of grandparents and her brothers and their partners, later to be their wives, to stay with her in Norway. We would later be joined by Norwegian cousins and grandparents to join in our UK-style Christmas Day celebrations. A turkey (with all the trimmings), a Christmas pudding and mince pies had all made the journey across the North Sea for this family gathering.

But first there were presents to open. The deer had disappeared into the snow-covered pine forest and the first streaks of daylight were cutting across the sky stretching from our kitchen window to the western shores of the Oslo Fjord. We barely noticed the spectacular sunrise at half past nine as we were busy exchanging presents and enjoying the delight of the two little ones for whom Christmas was a very novel experience. By now the sun was fully awake and blazing over a glittering snowscape. It was too beautiful to stay indoors and the lure of a nearby frozen lake drew uncles and aunts away from the Christmas Dinner preparations and out to join other revelers sledging in the sub-zero wonderland.

As the infants took their mid morning naps, the aromas of cooking our British Christmas meal filled the house along with the sounds of Christmas Music – all in English. The sun flooded the sitting room which like many Norwegian homes was on the first floor of the house – where it was unlikely that snow drifts would ever cover the windows! The view from higher up was spectacular. Thick snow covered every roof, every tree, every hill and even the fjord itself which was largely frozen and required ice breakers for the ships to pass through. Everything sparkled from the decorated tree inside the house to the sunlit scenes outside.

Ravenous, pink cheeked sledgers returned from their midday exertions, Norwegian grandparents roused for their second Christmas meal of the 2010 season had arrived and alcohol-flushed cooks had managed to produce a meal that was only running a little behind schedule.

By now the living room was flooded with last rosy rays of Christmas sunshine. As the sun sank behind distant, western hills, we all sat down to eat at a table bathed in sunshine. Bit by bit as the sun set, candlelight lit up a scene of happy diners and great contentment.

Traditionally Norwegian days ended at sundown – then the new day began. This partly explains why Christ’s birth – and present exchanges – are celebrated on modern Norway’s Christmas Eve. It wasn’t always so. In olden times that darkness after sunset had in fact marked the start of the next day – Christmas Day - so Christmas Day celebrations would begin early in the night.

So in keeping with the old ways of thinking I will end this Yuletide memory at sunset when it was was only half past three, when we were in the middle of our Christmas lunch and the Nordic night had already arrived to wrap up the most magical of Christmas Days in an indigo black, starry-sky blanket.