Books

By Way of an Introduction

It’s Midsummer in Treddoch Harbour, the time of the year when daylight seems to want to run on forever and night is just an unwanted and unwarranted intrusion.

It’s that time of year when the blackbird can still be heard singing far into the evening and children are resentful of going to bed, for daylight, somehow, manages to worm its way through even the tightest of drawn curtains.

Grown-ups too are tempted to stay awake just that little bit longer, even though they know they shouldn’t; work lurks behind the coming morning’s alarm. Sitting out of doors though in the soft, warm air with a glass of something or other is always a preferable alternative. Winter, with its sharp nights and damp days, will come and confine them soon enough they know.

Not only is this Midsummer in general, but today, by chance, as we visit Treddoch Harbour, that sea-skirted, salt-washed, seagull-pooped-on community that lies snuggle-safe between its cliffs on Cornwall’s southern coast, towards the eastern end it is, more specifically, June the twenty-first, Midsummer’s Day, the Summer’s Solstice.

Today is that singular day of days in the calendar when the morning light comes streaming so early that it might seem to the untutored mind, that the hour’s much later than in fact it is. It’s especially true today, for the sky’s clear, the weather’s forecast to be more than fair and the temperatures are already on the rise, keeping pace with the ascending sun.

The blackbird has barely slept

‘Collected Writings Vol I’

is an introductory volume, the product of my first year of writing flash and short stories.

It’s an anthology of fifteen pieces writing published in November 2018. It’s quite a disparate collection, both in terms of length, with stories ranging from just over one hundred to almost six thousand words, and subject matter. They’re mostly fictional stories although there’s a travelogue, Harry’s Tour, and a reflection on the reluctance of deer to follow even the most basic of rules of the road.

Hopefully, there should be something for everyone inside.

Collected Writings - Vol II builds on from the first volume. It's a further collection of short stories with a wide and varied subject matter, ranging from the slightly humorous, A New Dawn, and two Christmas themed tales; Timothy’s People and A Letter to Santa, to the definitely serious, But For the Grace of God. 

As with Vol I there should be something for everyone.

Volume III opens with A Tar Dark Night, a story written in homage to Dylan Thomas following my visit to the little Township of Laugharne in South Wales, and finishes with Our Rose my first foray into monologues. Both are written in a humorous vein.

A Tar Dark Night is told over the period of a couple of hours during the night of an anniversary of Dylan’s birth, though which one isn’t specified. The story begins and ends in the graveyard,  the one by St Martin’s Church, that is, not the one overlooking the Taf. That’s reserved for Chapel.

Our Rose is narrated by one of the three main protaganists, Me, the Me being June, wife to long-suffering Reg and elder sister to the bookish Rose.  I so enjoyed writing this story, that I’ve gone on to write another six! There’s now a complete bookfull, Rose, My Reg, & Me, which will be published late 2021.

‘Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered’ began life as a short story, ‘Tea at Raffles’, published in Collected Writings - Vol I, 2018.

Kenver McDonald is desperate for an idea for his second novel. On a whim, he flies to Singapore and Raffles Hotel once home to the writers Miller, Maugham and Kipling. Over tea, they suggest that the girl in the blue hat, whom Kenver has seen in the hotel swimming pool, might prove an inspiration for his second novel. At that point, the girl had no name.

Our Rose, My Reg and Me is a set of ten, connected stories which, when taken together, form something of a novel. They’re narrated by June, the ‘Me’ of the title. Rose is June’s more educated sister and Reg, June’s long-suffering husband. All three, now well into their retirement years, comprise the main protagonists of the work.

Legend, or The Tale of Tommy Tattle, as it’s subtitled is currently, at 32k words, a Novella though I’m afraid the storyline doesn’t have the legs to make it as far as a novel, much as I’d wish.

It’s something of an Alice in Wonderland type tale for adults, in as much as the narrator falls asleep in a cemetery and has an imaginary conversation with several of the interred, including the now legendry Tommy Tattle himself.

Tommy Tattle, a local legend in the vicinity of Poleryn, a Cornish coastal community, was, and is a philanderer though death, he has had to accept has imposed limitations to his physical activity even if still not to his mouth.

Hopefully, the story’s lyrical qualities are its saving grace!