Evening sunshine
The first evening of summer and voices carry on the warm air; a group of young men play football in the village playing field. The field is well-equipped: a children’s play park with climbing-frame, slide and swings; a basketball hoop; a BMX cycle track; a zip wire; and two sets of soccer goals. It would have been a delight to … [continue reading …]
Twenty years later
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, lines from Seamus Heaney were posted on Twitter this morning. History says, don’t hope… But then, once in a lifetime The longed for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme. The reality of the moment was altogether more prosaic; it was more an exhausted sense … [continue reading …]
Hearing, but not speaking
Holidays in times past were spent in south-west France where an hour could be spent in the morning reading Sud Ouest, the regional daily newspaper. Having no more than phrasebook French was sufficient to allow the enjoyment of tales of the locality, once it even meant reading of a man, who lived next door to a house rented a number … [continue reading …]
TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER NOTICE ,
This was spammed by Google. It is very amateurish. Zenith Bank (UK) Ltd 39 Cornhill London EC3V 3ND United Kingdom tel: +44 70 8646 8527 Fax:+447043071539 Dear Esteemed Customer, TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER NOTICE. We are hereby officially notify you concerning your fund Telegraphic Transfer through our bank, Zenith Bank (UK) Ltd United Kingdom, to your bank account, which has been officially … [continue reading …]
Evening conversations
One evening in a distant late summer, there had been the sound of voices in the still air. Walking up the steep hill climbed by Long Street, the light of a candle illuminated the faces of four people sat around a table. Two couples sat in conversation, their exchanges punctuated by bursts of laughter. Empty plates and a bottle of … [continue reading …]
The unchristian church
Standing at the door of the school chapel a decade or more ago, a master spoke to a fellow staff member of a colleague overseas, “the sun that shines on Edward James also shines on me.” The words quoted from John Betjeman seemed appropriate to the ambience of timelessness encountered in the architecture of Butterfield that surrounded us and to … [continue reading …]
Uncivil wars
It is three hundred and seventy three years since the Battle of Langport was fought in the summer of 1645; an easy victory for Parliamentarian forces over ill-prepared soldiers of the Crown. At a meeting last Saturday, a local councillor reminded me that members of our respective families had stood opposite each other on the field at Wagg. Sitting together … [continue reading …]
Never too old to rock and roll
It is more than forty years since Jethro Tull recorded “Too old to rock and roll, too young to die.” The song tells of an old rocker who feels the world he had known has gone, that time has passed him by, that the music and the culture he loved has become an anachronism. He gets onto his motorcycle and … [continue reading …]
Flash fiction II
The box contained an odd miscellany: schoolbooks, comic annuals, football programmes. From between two glossy souvenirs of visits to Wembley Stadium, a grey wallet fell to the floor, a corner of paper projected from it. Stooping to pick it up, he pondered what the wallet might reveal. He hoped for a postal order, or an old pound note, or some … [continue reading …]