BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS 8 by Bristol Grammar School

BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS

University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SR

BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS

Bristol Grammar School, University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SR

Tel: +44 (0)117 933 9648

email: betweenfourjunctions@bgs.bristol.sch.uk

Editors: David Briggs and Luke Evans

Art Editor: Jane Troup

Design and Production: David Briggs, Luke Evans, and Louise Cox

Cover artwork: Eleanor Canning

BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS is published twice yearly in association with the Creative Writing Department at Bristol Grammar School.

We accept submissions by email attachment for poetry, prose fiction/non-fiction, script, and visual arts from everyone in the BGS community: pupils, students, staff, support staff, parents, governors, OBs.

Views expressed in BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS are not necessarily those of Bristol Grammar School; those of individual contributors are not necessarily those of the editors. While careful consideration of readers’ sensibilities has been a part of the editorial process, there are as many sensibilities as there are readers, and it is not entirely possible to avoid the inclusion of material that some readers may find challenging. We hope you share our view that the arts provide a suitable space in which to meet and negotiate challenging language and ideas.

Writers’ Examination Board

PROSE NON-FICTION

EDITORIAL

ARE THE ARTS a way of escaping reality or of reflecting it? We know what Hamlet thought. And Brecht come to that. Then again, much of what surrounds us culturally in the present moment seems designed as an escapist dream from the pressures and anxieties of life in an increasingly-stretched neo-liberal free market economy. This issue of Between Four Junctions is peppered with work borne of a hard-nosed intention to stare unflinchingly into the challenges that face us. Joshie Broddle’s poem ‘Spirit’ looks for consolation in our ability to overcome disorder and chaos. Beatrix Watson’s ‘Even Fire Will Be Forgotten’, reminds us – in a similar vein to the Anglo-Saxon poet of Deor and late Beatle George Harrison – that all things will pass. Sam Hewlett’s tender poem ‘Patchwork’ finds resilience in the face of illness and mortality, a theme also conveyed in the skilful allegory of ‘Watergate Bay’ by Charlie Groombridge. And J. J. Barton – one of our few but cherished parent contributors to the magazine – channels the spirit of Leonard Cohen to engage playfully with the ongoing rise of the machines.

On a related theme, one of our two staff contributors approaches a similar theme from a different angle. Graham Iwi’s non-fiction piece about his brother’s construction and employment of a poem-writing algorithm that brought him success in the Eisteddfod, reminds us that there’s more than one way to channel the muse. Actually, Iwi’s computer-poem is less surprising than it may at first seem for, among the significant members of the Oulipo movement in mid-twentieth century France were mathematicians, many of whom devised ludic and experimental ‘machines’ for constructing texts: such as the notion of replacing every noun in a poem with the noun seven entries along in the dictionary, or constructing a sonnet using only the words graced by the legs of an insect crawling over the open page of a published book.

Some writers in this issue find consolation and interest in the natural world. A series of acrostic poems by Madoc Medwell, Manuela Aguado Fu, Lucas Vanstone, and Ben Cooper celebrate the wonder of herons, kingfishers and nectar. Others turn to the Classical world for inspiration. Georgie Richards’s Audenesque ‘Return Ticket’ channels classical mythology to form a plangent love poem, Sofia Aullybocus makes similarly emotive use of the mythology of the apple tree (a poem also published on the splendid blog curated by the BGS Classics department), India Barton powerfully evokes a voice from limbo, and Andy Keen (our second staff contributor) provides a punchy and thoroughly engaging translation of Medea’s obloquy about husbands to the chorus of Corinthian women.

The prose fiction section features some short but carefully crafted highlights from last year’s Year 8 ekphrastic writing competition, with Áine Pritchett, Annie Mercer, and Isabella Narduzzo using evocative paintings as their inspiration for tightly-wrought pieces of flash fiction. Using a slightly larger canvas, Dan Porritt gives a masterclass in irony and narrative voice with his airport scene in ‘Across the Pond’.

Once again, we thank our contributors and our readers for being patient with us in publishing this issue of the magazine. We know it’s overdue, but we were keen to showcase visual art from the recent GCSE and A-Level candidates,

and also from the Creative Writing portfolios of recent AFA candidates. We therefore had to wait until the October half-term before being able to publish this work. So here it is at long last. Issue 8. We hope you find in these pages both escape and confrontation. As Brecht put it:

In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.

David Briggs and Luke Evans

POETRY

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DOMINIC GLYDON

Summer Paint

the wind is summer’s voice calling us away to the sun-drenched fields where we’ll sit below the arch of a pastel sky

we’ll walk the roads with smiles and smirks panting up the hills embracing the breeze learning to love the shade

you and I will be summer’s complacency and we’ll show the world our love the sun’s warmth is bliss when our eyes meet

when our eyes meet in August’s air the artist’s sky around us summer paint the brush in our hands

dawn will come to us the sun steals the heat of day it slips away over the horizon here in each other’s arms lilac wraps the world

if your lips found me watched by stars we could rest on the laurels I found with you

I found with you this feeling that makes

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my thoughts the sweetest nectar when the night calls us home I hope your laugh never stops

you taught me a love to long for you with all of me, passion in our eyes your smile stops my heart so I’ll hold you until our sun returns and the breeze blows again the wind is summer’s voice

Train to Ayr

the grass holds the wind the velvet blades and the longer tufts which line the green under the grey palm of a cloud across the malachite sea and a sky filled with the peaks of Arran

and how it felt to wander from home away to the rusted tracks and crumbling station benches to modest towns and a saffron hue splashed over wildflowers in the meadows the sky was sulking as Troon passed the window

the train does not stop to watch with me through the glass but I am stepping off the 9:40 from Paisley Central hoping the journey will never end

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The Rainy Rhythm

It is tapping against the window, echoing around my room. Nestled under my covers, only eyes and hair nervously wait outside the security of a friendly duvet. Safely smothered in warmth

I listen to the thick beat of the wet world outside my window. Wondering. The radio in the corner of my room sits on my desk, singing softly to accompaniment from the clouds. My room feels like a cave, I am like a bear. The sound of precipitation thickens, as the tiles of the roof stubbornly reject the watery greeting from the sky above.

Earlier, sitting at my window, I watched rain fall from the expanse of grey outside my house. Nothing moved but the tears falling from no-one, from no-where. They disappeared with a splash and were forgotten. Waking up to the same sound, my cave feels lonely but warm. Sad but calm.

Blue but sweet. I will stay for now.

Fall asleep alone surrounded by many voices. A very real dream.

CHLOE HILLIARD

Golden Sun, Melting Feathers

after Lord Alfred Tennyson

A silhouette in the dawn light, he Runs fingers over false wings and clasps At waxen feathers, warmth embracing the Tower nestled in the rocky crag He calls both his prison and home. With Fingers calloused and crooked, His father’s hands

Grasp his and tell him how close They are to freedom, to Winter and summer and the Light of the sun

Through the leaves in Spring. To the lonely Voice that echoes lands With lakes ring’d By daffodils and with Waters so still the Sun itself is stained azure. The boy dreams of the world His father has created for him. He Breathes salty air as he stands On the sunlit windowsill, the Water below wrinkled

Like fabric with a promise of the sea. Every thought falls away beneath The sky which seems to call him And time crawls

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To a halt as he Sits and watches

An eagle pluck a fish from The water. The bird flies back up to his Nest on the edge of the mountain, Flying free, not confined by the walls That hold the boy deluded by hope and Marred by hubris. Further above, something like A bad omen curls across the sky. A Dark, warning thunderbolt.

And as Icarus leaps through the window frame, he Doesn’t fly, he falls.

Decomposing

The flowers in my casket are wilting. I was laid on a bed of posies, in a coffin built with the bones of ancient sycamores. A bouquet of roses clasped to my chest, the thwack of a shovel sealed my fate, a stone bearing my name placed above my head.

I would have been scared as the wood of my coffin began to rot, had I not already been rotting, the creatures that had squirmed through the cracks burrowing into my skin.

A grasshopper’s lament, perhaps mourning my passing or perhaps the fact that the maggots would reach me first. Ants march through my arteries, following the path to the queen

and her brood.

My heart, a sleeping cicada, tremors, waiting to be roused for its glorious

three days of life.

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It is spring

again, & I am a chrysalis, the petals of a corpse lily peeling

open to reveal a bouquet perfumed with rot.

A ring, a ring of roses crowns my skull as a spider spins its final web & blossoms spring from fingertips.

Ivy around my headstone, nothing is sacred but this blue dress, bare foot, pockets full of posies.

Laugh & sneeze on the wind. We all fall down.

I am not unhappy. I wanted to be buried in a garden of flowers.

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Do Humans Dream of Eclectic Geese?

I wake up on an island As a bird, a duck, perhaps. My feathers too downy And caked in mud to tell, But my feet are webbed Like everyone else’s. Surrounding me are Assorted waterfowl –Swans proudly parading Their snow-white plumage, Ducks quacking indignantly As they pass. I am certain we Are gathered here to begin Our migration, to fly south To summer meadows, Warm winds lifting our Wings as we soar through A vibrant sky. I gather With the ducks as We spread our feathers In preparation for our Journey, yet as the ducks Begin to take to the skies I can’t seem to make my Feet leave the ground.

I leap and flap my wings, And though my muscles Flex and contract, and my Wings remain unclipped, I cannot get myself into The air. I know what I

Need to do; I am going Through the correct motions, And I know I have flown before, Yet now I cannot seem To remember how I did it. A mallard circles down from The sky towards me.

“Why aren’t you flying like The rest of us?”

“I cannot remember how.”

“Keep trying, you will Get it eventually.”

He swoops back into the Air, form becoming hazy As he dives into the mist.

I look around – perhaps one of The swans will teach me How to fly again? But they Have already gone. I am left On my island, alone.

I wish for a voice to tell me I am not a hopeless duck, But a swan, and that this Is the reason I could not fly With them. I feel I must Be a swan, yet, still I fear That I am simply looking For something to Explain away my ugly, Muddied feathers. Maybe I am just a Discoloured duckling Looking for attention? Or perhaps I’ve spent so long

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BETWEEN

FOUR JUNCTIONS

Pretending to be a duck That I have forgotten What I started out as. I am left Alone on my island to Figure out why I can’t do Something that comes so Naturally to everyone else, Something I distinctly remember being able to do, once. Whatever conclusion I come To always feels like a lie. And besides, no matter What I am, that doesn’t change The fact that I am still grounded, Still unable to fly.

And I wake with My head on a pillowcase, The wings torn from my back. I find myself An unsettled goose. My dreams probably Mean something, A reasoning nestled deep In my subconscious, But those feelings tumble Away like feathers As I make myself A coffee, and arrive at The same conclusion Again. I am just a human, And I was never Meant to fly.

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IBEN HULLAH

Dirty Plates

Despite not holding my breath I find myself unable to speak, As you smell the thick bindweed That climbs limply across the bedroom window.

I can’t see through its glass, Yet sunlight walks the bumps on my skin. And it’s hot, Like the coffee you pour across my thighs.

There are no cups left for me, Merely the dirty plates I lick. Each one made of china.

Paper-thin fingertips slip on the edges.

Some plates lie on the floor, Broken apart like biscuit crumbs, Mixing among the cartons of milk I was told to clean up.

Rough skin pushes hairs from my scalp. I can’t see through your bones. They push through the holes in my chest, And I can never fully breathe.

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Letting Me Leave

When caution becomes clarity, The kind that cools the body, The kind that runs through the spine, Moving foot to foot – fear falling to liberation.

That lifting feeling, The kind that makes breathing easier, cleaner. The kind that drops the tongue, Making the words no longer ambiguous to the imagination.

Embracing the thought, Clinging to the hair, The eyes, the fingers, the markings on skin –But able to let go.

Jump

Feet set spread. The wind sedentary, an unfixed settler. Its weight pulling on the green copper and foiled piping. Creaking. Life is short.

Looking adjacent, up at its bodywork and holding its stern. Craning to view the tiny top. Fall, please. Bend your bones and lift me up. Taste morning, drink noon. I wonder what it feels like.

Spread above lakes and rivers, sitting. It looks like buttonholes on my sleeves. A light kiss on my ankles. I felt warm and still. Jump the big rope, I heard him say. Jump it good and high And I did.

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EVIE OWEN

Little Rats

Penniless, risk en pointe, She stands—

She’s all grubby nail-beds, Candlelight through layers of tulle. Poised, expectant, strung up In frayed satin and Dorset buttons. Strung up in dirty money –Rouged ribboned puppet.

She’s all back-rooms at Palais Garnier, Signets on their filthy hands. Financial dependence carried by Aniseed breath and dim-lighting. Chandeliers, diamond hair pins, Who would have thought –

Their desperate scurrying Would be mistaken for performance.

Hylas and the Nymphs

As they stared at you, their heads tilted with temptation, did you not see danger in their pursed smiles? Did you not see your own watery grave, reflected in their pale eyes? You know, they laughed as your knees gave way to marsh

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and you plunged, face first, as if leaning in for a kiss, straight for those murky depths – strangled by lily pad roots. You saw something though, before the fall, a siren’s sharp tooth hidden by rosy lips, by translucent, sunken faces. Perhaps it was their sadness that drew you in – tear stains don’t show under the surface, but maybe you saw raw waterlines and clumped lashes and reached to help. Was their beauty worth it? Was yours?

Forever tethered to a pile of bones and rotting flesh, food for fish –you remained, you contemplated, you watched them swim back and forth, around and around you, disguised in their luminescent divinity, but you knew them for the thieves they were, poachers of the light. You could never blame them, just as you cannot tell the storm to cease or the wind to stop howling –no, this was all on you, you must have seen something you wanted in their eyes.

Homonymous Hemianopia

I

Two figures weep into the arms of their daughter, The three of them have not been this close since she was small. The scene is all beating hearts and extraordinary sunlight, Where despair meets love once again.

II

Homonymous hemianopia. Unpronounceable. Pushing away, away, away from the wielder of the axe, The hooded figure wading through encephalon fields. Each day he wanders the back rooms of the brain. Sometimes he steals the keys and opens the front door.

An unwelcome guest, his spit flies

As he screams prophetic mortality.

III

Do people who die young become their deaths? Plath? Keats? Hendrix? Winehouse? Diana? So young, still marvelling at the world, Still crying like newborn babes and Wailing, screaming, howling in anguished rage

As the wielder swings blade onto block.

IV

She sobs into the arms of her father

As if she were five again and afraid of the dark— Precious, cherished memories of love. He said that, as we sat there, at one point, he prayed.

Scary is not the dark, scary is when things are so uncertain God is brought in for reasoning.

Wracked with grave longing for the tears to subside, She begs, For the memories she cannot bear to part with yet To stay with her, For existence to stay like honey, like sweet milk. She tasted her own salty tears as the CT machine Introduced itself as Life Lived in Waiting Rooms. A blistering realm she would exist in alone.

V

Imagine Ozymandias, posing in his antique land, As a sculptor carved his image, preserving his life in rock. Imagine the fear of being nothing but remains.

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Imagine a waiting room, where bad news exudes Like spores from cold walls, where life becomes, well, Just life, nothing else. Where morbidity conjures horror yet All there is, is a girl holding the hands of each of her parents, Her mum to the left, her dad to the right.

VI

Mothers and their daughters are beautiful things, Suns and moons, mirrors and mirrors. Her mother had given her a set of eyes almost As if she’d taken them off her own face, filled the world With stars, and set her out into the light.

Afterwards, on the mission for fast food and Legally Blonde, Mum said she would’ve shaved her head with me.

VII

I wanted to dance in a meadow, in golden fields of song, To swim in rivers and oceans, I wanted to be –Jesus, don’t we all.

Thank the stars. Thank God. Thank the fucking universe. I want to know that I have lived, And with so, so much left to do, I thank the very Atoms that I am comprised of.

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JAI RAZDAN

Silent Night

The moon lights a quiet house.

Your knuckles drag on the countertop, A fist that isn’t aimed At anyone other than me and you.

I can hear your breathing, Your lungs screaming. But your voice is so quiet.

The mind compartmentalises –Me and you in one box That is on its way out

Before the sun rises.

On Therapy

That woman in the chair across from me –She knows me better than I know myself.

I can lie and lie, But she knows

That I am bothered and that I do care Even if I won’t say it.

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My glass was half empty And now it is gone.

My world in tatters And my heart pulling along.

Initials

We were the hopeful initials poked into fresh snow On a parked car’s bonnet,

Gazing out on a wintery world

Where parents danced as their children sang.

We were the sap-covered initials carved into tree bark –Pure and sweet, crafted by young love.

As we finished, the seekers began their search. We hid together, underneath our masterpiece.

To me, we were the messy initials on a school desk, Sketched out of boredom and young love,

Obsessed with the future, Yet entangled in the present.

That was us,

The loving initials scattered around our town.

So, tell me why I stand here now Clawing them out.

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LARA SMITH

This Is How I Will Remember It

we watch our girlhood ripen in bathtubs: i am dyeing your hair a shade darker

knowing by the time august sweetens, we’ll be plucking lemons all season. for now,

in the midsummer heaving – lungs churning hot air in a bell jar – it is vogues and

apricots, letting strangers buy us drinks, scrubbing out stains from sheets and skin alike.

you read the manual of the electric fan over a meal of pitted olives.

you smile: i know all your secrets. you lay them like laundry in the fold of my lap.

watermelon sun, humming city. it sleeps with us and does not wake until noon.

Damascene

This is a city you have lived in for so long that its streets have woven themselves into dreams which pull you from your slumber

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into eternal unrest. Dislocated though you remain, there are mornings when dawn swells with the promise of grace that you would think to turn your face upwards, warmth like oil upon your head, and let flesh fall to its molecular crudity in the presence of such benediction.

And who are you, Lord? you might have cried had the sun not been shrouded from sight and the surest thing you might have known, now surrendered to cityscape.

Glory Glory after Raymond Carver

I often think of when we woke, still half asleep, but with minds made up, and knew that a catalogue of non-definitive acts would be this love’s eulogy. You told me morning had a funny way of playing with whatever dreams you owned and bringing them to a cynical conclusion. I thought terrific, but why did we deny ourselves the urge to hold onto a big, gigantic love, to bleed ourselves dry and lie until our chests had caved in?

I watched you move from the bed like a time-traveller, taking all

of what I had imagined for the day with a simple unfolding of time and distilling of all the holy books I had read.

Perhaps, if we had fought for whatever little there was to gain, and against what really was inevitable, it would have made for a softer fall. But we read the end like a flight of birds. Each minute was toppling into pitfall, then disremembered, never to be looked for. Your gaze was fixed out on everything mysterious and important, the life that was unfurling from every open window.

This was nothing to marvel at: we had forgotten the wild accusations under blankets of rain, where bodies become bodies and nothing more than impulse. Instead, resigning yourself, you gave me up. And then it was over. You only needed to put the keys on the table. I, myself, was waiting for the sun to come entirely and let all the light in so that I could see the haloed curve of your back. What is there to do but keep returning to the harbours of soft tides where we anchor our minds each night? This might not be enough, even with the rainy declarations and return to cruder forms. For morning unearths all. Would

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you still believe in me, if I forgot how to live without sailing asleep, my big, gigantic love replacing the life unfurling? We could begin over, once more, and again dream all night, make a new catalogue, the page numbers, mine and yours, the same.

Is morning – are we – so unforgivable? Give me your litany of categorisable mistakes: the I wish I had never said yes, the I might not have given all that I gave. And I’ll bless each half of this eulogy, crying mercy on a morning performance of marriage that gave us a chance to say I wish I had never said yes. Let me always say yes.

NAT TOWNSEND

Farther

I’d climbed the stairs dripping blood as if it were ink. Some bitterness in the boy who slices fruit and finds himself cut. I’d washed it before the water ran cold. It happened easy.

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My mind was on an earlier mistake: I’d been explaining a myth the younger kids liked – a boy, not knowing his father, finds he’s a prince – and spelt ‘father’ wrong, to some child’s laughter.

To look at this face in a dim bathroom, as the water echoes red, is to find it composed in halves. The same dimple, on one side, lending an asymmetry as if it were a mistake in design.

To look at this face, briefly, is to confuse it for another, to treat it by transporting it to another time – to say: “Don’t you have his eyes?” is to say: “Have his eyes. Take them as your own, this gifted state, and look at the rest of you until it becomes all the same”. There’s comfort in familiarity. But to look at your face and trace its edges beyond the skin – to some distant Magellanic Cloud – is to know how apt our failings. To know a face farther.

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The Hind between the leaves you see a creature head bowed in a stream as if he were some sacred thing he looks too peaceful there so your foot presses on a stick to watch as it splinters & cracks & stops the drink dripping from his mouth he looks almost ruminant with tension in his mandible the boy does not know what it means to drink from a stream in man’s country soon you’ll raise the polished wood in your fist & point it sharp at the boy & see one of his white flecks blossom red petals that fall along the watercourse of his muscular neck open on the dirt his lungs deflated but you misunderstand the mechanics of a shot & will find yourself a taxidermy as to hunt a hind is to find yourself prey to your own pulse.

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Folk Song

I am trying to describe a tattoo a girl had, to a friend. I’d drawn three blue bells in a picture frame, pointed to the position on the arm, above the elbow. I know I was wrong about the flower but it was sketch-work & appropriate –I’d only caught it mid-blur, swept with the dull confusion brought on by Jäger & that opulent smell of Jasmine or Tuberose. Now, I’ve started on about how she’d drawn it herself, that she loved the new, aureate light turning over her first earthly sight –that waves setting in the morning were whispers, like some folk hangover-cure.

By this point, my friend is folding the receipt into a crane, dotted with our insignificant equations. My friend says: “You remember?

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I taught you to make them at the back of our first class”.

I think this is where song comes from, the empty space under the skin,

where all music passes or stays &, like a flower in a tattoo, never wilts.

MADOC MEDWELL

Kingfisher

King of rivers and rhynes: For kingfisher is a keen hunter.

Idyllic blues swarming its body, Which billows so deep – sea deep: For kingfisher is a beautiful spectacle.

Native to the narrow streams: For kingfisher is naïve and nimble.

Garmented in a blue and orange coat, Gracious in gliding and gifted in hunting: For kingfisher is a glamorous individual.

Flourishing in early morning, thriving in summer: For kingfisher is beauty-bound.

Idiosyncratic sense of style, Possessing impeccable looks, beautiful as dawn in heaven: For kingfisher is an eye-catching sight.

Speeding across the moist plains, Inevitably diving into the depths of blue: For kingfisher is unhesitating in flight.

Harmonious in morning call, A habitual routine of perching on riversides: For kingfisher is happy and heartening.

Enlightening the mood of every passerby, Rich in colour, rigorous in action: For kingfisher is a resilient figure.

Ravishing looks, the key to life in the river corridor: For kingfisher is kingfisher.

BEATRIX WATSON

Even Fire Will Be Forgotten

Some people say fire is life, That its warm embrace is our only hope in this frigid world, That its light leads the way to salvation, That its dancing flames will celebrate with us all night long. I, however, am not one of these people.

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I am not one to see fire and to only see Its warm facade, Its misleading light, Its celebratory illusions. For I see its soul.

When I gaze into the heart of a fire I do not see comfort, I see its bloodied teeth of destruction, I see its knifelike claws clutching the bodies of its victims, I see its all-consuming heat that will stop at nothing to burn and burn And keep burning until nothing is left. I know fire; I know that fire deceives.

Some people say fire is death, That no matter how small it will consume you eventually, That whatever you do you cannot do anything but delay its fury, That however fast you can run it can chase you faster. But, I also know that eventually every fire will tire.

Eventually, even fire will be forgotten.

GEORGIE RICHARDS

Return Ticket

Break the shell, Pierce the lock, Let Zeus’ hands leave our clay-formed race. Let the string break and free your fate.

Let Sisyphus roll down his hill, Let Icarus leave the high sun still, Let Daedalus mend his broken wing, Let Echo free, let her voice sing. Let Achilles’ ankle slip, let him drown, Let Patroclus’ armour weigh him down.

Let Orpheus ignore his love, Let Eurydice rejoice above, Let Hercules lose his poisoned cloak, Let Amazon queens emerge from smoke, Let Persephone’s flowers grow from bones, Let harpies land as quiet crones.

Let Pandora throw away her key, Let Tantalus grasp his apple tree.

Let heroes halt and demons fade, Let children shelter in the shade. Let priests bow and sinners cry, Let everyone mourn you as do I.

Let us two meet in fields below, Let us meet as rook and crow.

Let us love as we lived, by which I mean – free. Let us soar across the sea.

The Plight of a Bird

Before bruised feet hit the ground, And tattered feathers tear through brambles, Before wide eyes ripple shut, Before the heart stops beating.

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Before I find his crippled cast And wrap him in my shawl, Before blood stains the ground And the world moves in once more.

Before your fall, Before your flight, Before your scream from greatest height.

Before I found you that morn, Before your wings – alas! – were torn, Did you pray to lofty skies? Which bird gods told you whispered lies?

Before you plummeted through these clouds, Before you stained this battleground, Did you have hopes For brighter days? Did darkening clouds Wash them away?

Would you have asked a favour from the gods Before you shattered, screamed and stopped?

Am I to pass that favour on?

Am I to mourn your broken heart? And whisper prayers as you depart?

After you fell, After I heard, Am I to tell The plight of a bird?

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JOSHIE

BRODDLE

Spirit

The burning drive to advance beyond all Consumes everything in its fiery path. The calm before the storm, Before its endless wrath.

Water could not put out one spark –That of an idea, a wild, feral thought Birthing an iridescent, flaming arc That only the bravest would have sought.

As the world is surrounded by hungry flames Reams of knowledge and order burns within, But the spirit of the human still remains, So the disorder and chaos will never win.

The Humble Fountain Pen

THE INGENIOUS PEN is often overlooked. Sitting idly on the desks of millions around the world, its subtle scrape as it gently glides across paper representing a lifetime of emotions in a single stroke. The pen dances, pirouetting across the page like a perfect symphony. It is a portal, showing our past, future and present with its mastery over writing and art. The pen is ornate and intricate, weaving gold and silver into its fragile yet mighty construction. It is cold to the touch, but somehow inviting, almost whispering to you of what it can do, the many worlds of use for it. Ink begins to flow out of the intricate, gilded nib, starting as a dark and manoeuvrable liquid, then drying as shapes following the path of the fountain pen. Its metallic black ink’s shine is eternal, changing your life with one signature. It is not just a pen, but an everlasting story.

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MANUELA AGUADO FU

Heron

High standing, like silver trees, a grey dart in fields of reeds: For heron is as heron hides.

Elegance in every step, stalking on stilt legs: For heron is as heron walks.

Rising moon, setting sun, a messenger of the gods: For heron is as heron lives.

Obsidian-sharp beak, feathers block sun: For heron is as heron runs.

Nettles and reeds, willows reach for the sky: For heron is as heron flys.

J.J. BARTON

Leonard Cohen’s Artificial Eye: Who Knew?

with apologies to L. Cohen and thanks to I.P.D. Barton

Everybody knows the spellcheck’s working, Everybody types with their fingers crossed; Everybody knows the war is over, Everybody knows the lexicon’s lost; Everybody knows the fight was fixed –

The smart stay smart, the rest subsist, That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.

Everybody knows the oil is leaking, Everybody knows that the Author lied, Everybody got this broken feeling, Like their fav’rite character just died; Everybody wishing on a lamp, Everybody striking their own match For the poems and prose, And everybody knows.

Everybody knows that you love your letters, Everybody knows that you really do, Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful, Ah, give or take a word or two; Everybody knows you’ve been discreet, But there were so many deadlines you just had to meet With your diction’ry closed, And everybody knows.

Everybody knows, Everybody knows, That’s how it goes.

Everybody knows, Everybody knows, That’s how it goes, Everybody knows.

And everybody knows the newer the better, Everybody knows to upgrade soon; And everybody knows that you live forever

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Ah, when you post a vid or two; Everybody knows the model’s rotten, The AI blinks and you’ve forgotten What you used to know, And everybody knows.

And everybody knows the machines are coming, Everybody knows that they’re moving fast, Everybody knows that the forum internum Is just a shining artefact of the past; Everybody knows before you’re dead There’s gonna be a chip inside your head That will disclose What everybody knows.

And everybody knows that you’re in trouble, Everybody knows you’ve been processed through The occult algos in Silicon Valley, To data-mining in Peru; Everybody knows you’ve played your part; Take one last look at the à la carte Before it goes, And everybody knows.

Everybody knows, Everybody knows, That’s how it goes, Everybody knows.

Oh everybody knows, Everybody knows, That’s how it goes, Everybody knows. Everybody knows.

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INDIA BARTON

Slipping Still

Sleep will not take me, it has not for days as I gaze at rest my bones will not set

It is cold where I am, and the company I keep whispers only in the dark

I shiver They walk over my grave I would at the sun Unblinking heart beating

It is dark where I am, and those whispers, frozen, Echoes only in the night

I yearn for this time, the slipping of day, the shadow again, again of the night

Precisely in the darkness still sleep will not take me.

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SOFIA AULLYBOCUS

Apple Tree

Red dye soaks my thighs. The men care nothing For spurted clots – fluids burst; I am ripped, torn, peeled. The anguish of bleeding and the apple of discord: Both start wars

Because now he wants another child,

to replace the one I lost.

He wants a son, To be a warrior like him No daughter could ever be.

Is rotten fruit the fault of the tree? It is for me.

I weave, I serve wine, I bear children –Men spear enemies, their shields groan with each hit, Whilst my fallen apple lies dead in the pit.

He regards the despondent wailing of a mourning mother But sees only a barren Apple Tree.

I remember you, My child.

I remember you as my womb swells again With another ripening apple.

ANDY KEEN

Medea Speaks to the Chorus of Corinthian Women

[a translation of Euripides’ Medea, 214-265]

You wives of Corinth, here I am, outside the house! I came outside to stop you finding fault with me, For all too well I know that many mortal men Have tried to stay aloof, avoiding people’s gaze, Or spending time abroad: they aim to stay alone, But get a name for spite and reckless attitude.

For fairness does not live within the eyes of those Who form, before they get to know somebody’s heart, Pre-mixed hostility, though never wronged by them. But strangers in a state must not step out of line.

I’ve never spoken well about a person who, Through ignorance, spits shame on citizens. To me this trouble without warning has appeared. It has destroyed my soul. My joy of life has gone. And so, I’m here to tell you, friends, I want to die.

For he who was to me my everything, my all, Has turned into a toxic traitor, truth be told. My own dear husband, dear to me no more, my friends.

Of all the beings that have breath and thought and mind, We women are the abject worst in misery. For first we must, for much-inflated pay, go out And purchase husbands, who behave as autocrats And rule our bodies: insult on calamity!

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Yet this is where the worst of our great struggles lies: We don’t know if the man we choose is good or bad! For women can’t divorce: it isn’t seen as right. Nor can we have permission to dispense with him.

We’ve got to learn new habits too when we arrive: We cannot learn at home: a psychic power’s required, In order that we know what ‘needs’ our husbands have…

And if we’re judged to do these tasks sufficiently, Our man can live with ease, and not resent the yoke: A happy life! And yet, if not, we’d rather die.

A man who gets annoyed with her indoors goes out, And finds a way to ease his troubled heart elsewhere! [He finds a friend or comrade of his age, you see.] But we must look to only one man all our lives! They say we live a life of ease, at home, secure, While they, with spear in hand, must fight in wars abroad. They’re talking shit. Three times with shield in hand I’d stand, Three times, before I’d go through giving birth just once.

But words like these do not befit your place or mine: For this is your homeland – your father’s house is here, You have some joy of life, and friends to share it with, While I’m alone and stateless, outraged and abused. My husband hates me, exiled as I am from home: A barbarous home from which I fled in custody, Motherless, brotherless, friendless, alone, I sail without a harbour which could rescue me.

I ask of you this one small favour, if you will: If only I can find a way, some plan or plot, To pay them back in spades for what they’ve done to me,

My husband, and the man who gave his girl to him, Stay silent!

For a woman’s mostly full of fear, And hates to see a spear or battle-line of war, Yet when I see my honour scorned, debased, There is no mind or mood more murderous than mine.

BEN COOPER

Kingfisher

King of patience, agility and speed,

In burrow-like nests, by rivers with reeds;

Nutritious insects and freshwater fish,

Grasshoppers and lizards are their dish;

Feathers of orange, turquoise and white;

Idyllically resting during the night;

Song-less bird with a piping laughter;

Huge beak for diving into water faster;

Energetically swooping, spearing prey,

Returning back to the nest, where it will stay.

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LUCAS VANSTONE

Nectar

Nutrients, the jackpot for insects:

Essential for the world of nature,

Concealed within the most beautiful plants,

The home of a bee’s imagination –

A hiding place

Rich in sugars, the nectar.

CHARLIE GROOMBRIDGE

Watergate Bay

A breaking wave is any surfer’s dream –The chance to charge in from the far-out sea. We look to the horizon, judging incoming waves, As we all sit, amid the cold, morning spray.

To paddle farther out would be to catch the larger swell, But the ocean current’s strong, and it would be wise not to dwell. For dwelling can lead to being pulled out by the tide, And once your mind’s caught spinning, your head can only abide.

Yet, I swam farther out, tempted by the surf –A roller crashing in, both great in height and wide in berth. Of course, I would not be the only one to spot Big Bertha, But, if I started in the deep, perhaps I could ride it further.

Behind me, most wait, close to the safety of the bay; Some swim with me, aiming for where forever blue meets grey. My breaker climbs higher, white froth now reaching into cloud, And then my breaker’s broken in a cacophony of endless sound.

I clamber, I scramble. Needless to say it does not suffice. My wave now tosses and curls, with me stuck in its vice. Hang on, I dare, trying to stand atop my bowed white horse; The momentum never builds, and we each go our separate course.

And here I am too deep, far out of depth, my mind is sinking, The board I’d rode for so long, all broken into kindling. Is it worth it to stay afloat, to hold your spirit high in nights ahead. It was never meant to be my wave, it was intended for others instead.

And for them, it is the wave of a lifetime, the best of all the swell. Let them ride their wave. They will ride far, ride true, ride well. If there were ways to turn back time, to tell myself what I know now, Perhaps there were things I could have changed, but I wouldn’t know how?

Whatever you do though, keep your head above the water. Waves keep crashing in, so – soon, or shortly after –Your wave will come to carry you into shore. It’s not about how you fall, it’s how you pick yourself up from the floor.

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SAM HEWLETT

Patchwork

While encumbered with her prodigy my mother, as loving As the soft dawn of a new day, threaded metal needles With strings of her heart, into patches intended for her Newborn boy.

After the birth she was paralysed with pride and joy. My mother saw, that day, saw her son for the first time; As time passes her love never diminishes and all her Prayers and wishes speed to her boy.

With years going by the patches were left as the memories Of her time before. Forgotten was the plan they were Set to complete. The blanket never made for that sweetAs-apples boy.

The leeching but deathless illness starts to set in, she Grasps her life bearing needles again and sets to work. As the connecting threads spin, the needles click clack Together and the patches fall in line like the hardened Soldiers this illness creates.

A bear, stuffed with the infant clothes of her boy, is born.

PROSE FICTION

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DANIEL PORRITT

Across the Pond

DUTY FREE, Terminal 8, JFK Airport: all the nauseating lighting of a hospital, with none of the hygiene. Perhaps the white fluorescence is to trick faithful flyers into thinking they’re in some kind of commercial heaven, but a four-hour flight delay and a seating area packed with America’s finest throat-clearers put a swift stop to that illusion.

I tried to speed up the wait by refraining from checking the time, but couldn’t help using other clues to work out how long it had been: five announcements had squeaked out of the PA loudspeaker since I sat down, and the man to my left had happily announced to his family that he was “Gonna head to the ol’ restroom” on three occasions. I placed my bet on an hour and a half and checked the flight board to assess my temporal tactics. The digital display stared back at me mockingly. 23:35. It had hardly been fifteen minutes. My initial burst of impatience soon gave way to a profound concern for the health of the gentleman in the seat next to me, who was now partway through his fourth toilet declaration. The fascination must have spread to my face, because I was soon being reassured by the tanned traveller that this was all routine behaviour: “You can expect about eight an hour, bud. You know, on a night like this.”

I wasn’t sure what kind of night this was. Full moon? I thought it best not to ask, and just gave a solemn nod.

“Jeb,” he said with an unsavoury grin.

I had suffered the unwanted friendliness of the USA for almost a week now, but a stranger telling me their name after justifying the frequency of their urination was a new level of discomfort. Nonetheless, I played the game and introduced myself—big smile and Nice to meet you dished out like a professional—and awaited his cheery response. Nothing.

He just looked at me blankly. For a moment I think some disappointment crossed his face. He sighed. Then, after a long pause: “Wallace.”

Presumably he was adding a surname to the mix, rather than changing his mind about the first one, but no clues were to be found in the delivery. He said it with weary resignation, as if I had nagged him for the information for hours. Seemingly deep in thought, he blinked slowly, pale eyelids sticking out from his otherwise orange face, like blotches of Tipp-Ex on a bloated satsuma.

I frantically hid my disgust before he opened his eyes and whispered, “Back soon.”

With that, he trundled down the aisle of coughers towards the restroom sign. A choir of screaming children drifted out of a bookstore and into a pharmacy, prepping my ears for takeoff pain. I wondered whether stretching my legs was worth losing my seat for, but my investment in the behaviour of this American kept me in place. My strange acquaintance returned in suspiciously little time, and it is only natural for a vigilant member of society to question whether soap and warm water have been put to good use. I decided not to confront Mr Wallace verbally, but a slight raising of the eyebrows and a glance towards his hands let him know he was being watched. He seemed even more unhappy now, and remained silent for around five minutes. Midway through an intense

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session of speculation as to why this toilet trip had made Jeb so taciturn—post-excretory shame and cubicle disillusionment being the two leading theories—my train of thought was interrupted by a long sigh, followed by: “That’s better.”

Looking up from the sticky floor I discovered what, exactly, was ‘better’. Having apparently concluded that shoes were far too restrictive for a free country, Mr Wallace had liberated his feet, and was now entertaining himself by poking his big toes through holes in their respective socks, flexing the digits up and down in the air. The wagging calloused stubs, in isolation, were reminiscent of two rotting Punch and Judy puppets—perhaps operated by a troubled seaside entertainer. When observed together with the rest of the image, however, a deeper terror developed: my eyes traced the toes to their master, finishing their journey up the body at a beaming round face. I seemed to be looking at a giant, greasy, suntanned baby who had recently discovered the power to control his limbs. Alas, Bend the Toes Up and Down proved a game with limited entertainment value, and Jeb was soon looking around for further stimulation. I tried to avoid eye contact and pretended to answer a phone call, but it was too late. I sensed his gaze fix on me.

“British!” he said. He was pointing and grinning like he’d spotted an animal the zookeeper said wouldn’t come out today. “I’m good with these things. Accents, I mean. Better than most. It’s all in the details, the nuances.” He snapped his fingers in time with each noun. “Now wait, don’t tell me the city.”

By this stage of the delays most people in the seating area had dozed off, but Jeb’s little outburst had startled several surrounding passengers out of their flight-filled dreams, and he now had a small audience awaiting his final answer. Something in me wanted this peculiar man to guess correctly. I could picture him, index fingers massaging his temples, whispering “Bristol.” I could imagine his proud face as I nodded in confirmation. I could see his two big toes bouncing up and down with his excited feet like grubby little twins in a Glastonbury crowd. Come on, Jeb.

“Glasgow!”

Oh well. I let him have a moment of hopeful uncertainty, then took no pleasure in shaking my head. I thought this would put an end to the conversation, but Jeb wasn’t giving up that easily. His eyes narrowed in frustration, and he doubled down:

“What? Yes. Glasgow.”

A solid argument, but still incorrect. I tried to de-escalate the situation by explaining Jeb’s confusion to him, but he had cut me off before I got to the second syllable of ‘southwest’.

“Huh? What? No. Glasgow.”

Two more heads turned from the row in front to investigate the incident. It occurred to me that nearby spectators might also assume I was lying, and side with my opponent. My face began to burn with embarrassment just as Jeb’s once orange cheeks gained the crimson hue of rage.

“Hey, bud,” he said, leaning in now. “What are you doing? What, you’re a sore loser, is that it?” The ghost of a hotdog lingered on his angry breath. “I won, alright? I won fair and square.”

I hadn’t realised until this point that our interaction had been a competition, but Jeb had clearly been keeping score and had taken the defeat to heart. I weighed up possible solutions quickly, the problem now inches away from my face. I could try to explain the geography again, but that might just fan the flames. I could lie to please him and say he was right—but that would lead to

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further questioning as to why I had initially withheld the truth. I could run… but where to? Hiding from him in the toilets would be like hiding from the Devil in Hell; that was his domain and he knew it well. He was growing restless now, nostrils flaring like a wronged bull. I needed to act, and I needed to act now.

“Glasgow. Yes. Sorry.” I clenched my jaw with each word, nervously awaiting the consequences. Silence. I held my breath. Then, gradually, his face returned to its familiar tint. He leaned back slowly, and—one by one—the onlookers went back to their business. Some shook their heads slightly in disapproval of my apparently poor sportsmanship, but, on the whole, a calmness displaced the tension. Jeb sighed deeply and gently stroked his exposed toes, as if he were letting them know that everything was going to be alright. Then he turned his attention back to me.

“I knew you’d be mature about it.” He tilted his head slightly to the left and gave me an expertly condescending smile. “Ha! Look at that,” he said, eyes on the flight board’s clock. “You’ve put me behind schedule.” Up he got, loosening his belt while alerting his family once again, and off he went.

I decided I’d find another seat a few rows back, and began to make my way down the aisle, trying to process the events of the last half hour. I walked a few steps forward, but my progress was halted by a tap on my elbow. A familiar face was looking up at me, similar to Jeb’s in tan, but narrower, and more convincing in its grin. As the gentleman stood up I realised where I recognised him from. This was one of the disappointed heads I had seen shaking shortly after Glasgowgate. Something told me to keep moving, but his friendly expression gave me hope. Maybe this man would put my mind at ease; maybe he had fully understood the situation and realised what I’d had to do. Perhaps some justice or sanity would be found in this beaming traveller that could restore my faith in airport etiquette.

“Hey, listen kid.” He rested one hand on my shoulder and slapped my back with the other. “If it’s any consolation, your English is impeccable.”

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ÁINE PRITCHETT

Lady Jane Grey

THE AIR WAS THICK and my breath was warm in the cold night air. My heart thumped in my chest but the loudest sound that I could hear was the sharp intake of icy breath to my left. My Lady shivered in her thin, cream dress as the executioner tied a matching cream blindfold around her delicate head. It seemed only minutes ago that I was brushing the golden curls on the very same scalp. But now the curls had knotted and there she was in front of me, awaiting her imminent passing. I thought that the blindfold was rather cruel. If it was me, I would want to be able to take one last look at the world that had betrayed me so viciously and bid it farewell. But my poor Lady was being stripped of her last freedom, as her head was made to lie down on the chopping block. A block of wood that had surely come from an old oak, freshly cut and waxed for my Lady’s precious blood to coat. Was that its only purpose? To be coated and disposed of? Surely that was the cruellest part – to force her beautiful head onto something so useless and disposable. What else was disposable? Surely not my Lady herself? Her death was wasteful and selfish. For all her grownup airs and graces, she was simply a sweet and gentle girl. What was the point of her death? The satisfaction of some higher power who was too important to visit my Lady in her final moments? The executioner raised his axe high into the blackness and … hesitated. Had he faltered on purpose? Or did he see what I saw? No matter, for whatever thoughts had run through his head, they didn’t stop him from bringing his axe down onto my Lady’s neck. A cry of pain escaped my lips and my legs gave way. I hit my head on the floor and everything went to black.

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ISABELLA NARDUZZO

Show the Good

A LOT HAPPENED that night. It all started with the fire. As the people of London slept, a dark mass shot down from the sky, glowing like embers, yet wholly unnoticed by the people. It hit where its chemicals were most attracted – strife and argument. It was headed for the Houses of Parliament. Time seemed to slow down as the complex craft crashed to earth. All of a sudden, there was a crash, a heart-stopping silence, and then an explosion. It was as if the rain was on fire, deadly and destructive, keeping the disastrous black oil strife seeking still, the chemical components that attracted this parasite to trouble. Down in the streets, it was another story. One of panic, danger and death. Panic roamed everywhere, not unlike the lost people, seeking out refuge and recovery, like the strife was seeking out disagreement. The decimation of London was complete, and the devastation was absolute. Everywhere there were people festered by seeping, almost solid smoke, cocooning their lungs and choking them to a surely hellish death. The firefighters spread out like red and yellow ants, minute to the gargantuan disaster around them. Yet, against all odds, the kindness of the uninjured to the injured was effective against the negative energy, and in time the burnt-out fire was wavering. The damage had been dealt, and the shield had broken, yet the people were ever resilient. The unexpected masses of the unharmed now combed the area, looking for tasks to undertake. In time, ambulances would arrive, assisting the victims of the jeopardising jam. But the moral of this melancholy musing? Show the good in yourself when other people need it.

ANNIE MERCER

Fire

A HUNDRED burnt-black mourning figures stood, wreathed in smoke and sweat, and watched their lives slip into ash and fire. Their beloved London was burning. It was a desperate rush for freedom from the choking smoke, where humans stopped being humans and became feral beasts bolting to escape the blaze that licked at their heels. There were no rules, only blood and heat. To the people fleeing, the only thing that existed was the raging, all-consuming inferno. A mother and her child had fallen, and had been trapped under a burning beam, but the flames would not be the death of them. The smoke had already begun to enter their desperate wheezing lungs. But there were a few stragglers left – brave souls armed with buckets, a chain was formed and an attempt was made to save them. That time they were lucky, and the small family lived, with the promise of fresh air and soothing, healing water. But they were the fortunate ones. The burnt and twisted corpses of the less fortunate littered the ground, mangled beyond recognition by hundreds of frantic feet.

VISUAL ART

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JAMES ORMISTON

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Walking to School

fine liner drawing

DIANA STASIUK

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EVIE SEYMOUR

Hepworth’s Garden

acrylic board

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New York, New York

mixed media on board

OLLIE CLAYTON

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ISABELLE HAMMOND

Oregon Coast 1

acrylic on board

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ISABELLE HAMMOND

Oregon Coast 2

acrylic on board

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ELEANOR CANNING

After Chabia Tala

acrylic on board

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ELEANOR CANNING

Untitled screen print on paper

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SRISAUL BUDDHA

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Self-portrait

SRISAUL BUDDHA

acrylic on board

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ISABELLE COMINS

Cornish Coast

acrylic on board

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HONEY VENABLES

Untitled screen print on paper

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ALFRED BARROSO TAYLOR

Untitled

acrylic on board

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ANYA OLEINIK

Self-portrait pencil drawing

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After Lucy Jones

acrylic ink on paper

THALIA BUCK

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POPPY BIRCH

Wills Building

acrylic ink on paper

PROSE NON-FICTION

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GRAHAM IWI

A Poet in the Family

I HAD SOME SURPRISING NEWS to digest. My older brother Alan was the recipient of a literary award.

This wasn’t honestly something that I was expecting as his bookshelves are hardly over-flowing with works of literature. And most of his previous publications were technical papers. But I was still very pleased to learn of this new-found talent.

He had won a poetry competition within the annual national Welsh festival, The Eisteddfod, since teaching himself the language after going on walking holidays in Snowdonia.

His entry in the Strict Meter Poem section had achieved first place and generous praise from the judges, with a Welsh cultural magazine subsequently featuring an interview with him.

Could this be an expression of Alan’s latent poetic and creative interests emerging after years devoted to scientific pursuits? Well, that would be the more romantic way to portray this accomplishment.

In fact, as he made clear in his interview, this was also a demonstration of how poetry writing could be assisted by algorithm. He had devised a program to help find combinations of words to fit given rhyming, scanning and alliteration patterns.

Only then would the more human side of the writing process begin - with scrolling through screenfuls of computergenerated suggestions in order to select the output with the greatest poetic resonance.

Nonetheless, Alan might not have boosted his chances of attaining further awards by being so open about all this. I cannot imagine that poetry composition through Python-programming will warm the hearts of the writing community. He spoke of how the mathematical nature of the poem’s syllable structure combines with the phonetical rules of Welsh pronunciation to inform the coding specification. Perhaps he should have tried to wax more lyrically about his sources of inspiration. But I salute his honesty and integrity. After all, why should he have hidden his tracks just because he had followed an unusual path?

Should this approach to writing poetry be considered as cheating? Not if this is effectively an enhanced rhyming dictionary or thesaurus with the additional capability of ordering sequences of words - a preliminary sorting and filtering tool for the building blocks of the poem. As this doesn’t involve plagiarism or Artificial Intelligence, I think it deserves to be accepted and not frowned upon.

It’s a shame that Alan hasn’t got round to adding a user-interface so that others can enjoy the fruits of his labours. He says that this would take him too long. So for now at least, only programmers with a grasp of scripting languages and wildcard expressions will be able to decipher and make use of his code. In theory, this could be plugged into an

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English rather than a Welsh dictionary database and then adapted it to a range of metrics, such as sonnets, haikus or limericks. So maybe one day a commercially viable Poetry Writing Assistant could come from this. I just mention this in case someone fancies taking on such a project.

I must admit that I probably haven’t done sufficient justice here to my brother’s poetic and Welsh language prowess, without which his programming skills would not have got him very far.

But I do profess a geeky admiration for his innovative algorithmic route to success in an unlikely domain.

DOMINIC GLYDON

CHLOE HILLIARD

IBEN HULLAH

EVIE OWEN

JAI RAZDAN

LARA SMITH

NAT TOWNSEND

JOSHIE BRODDLE

MADOC MEDWELL

BEATRIX WATSON

SAM HEWLETT

MANUELA AGUADO FU

GEORGIE RICHARDS

SOFIA AULLYBOCUS

J. J. BARTON

INDIA BARTON

ANDY KEEN

LUCAS VANSTONE

CHARLIE GROOMBRIDGE

BEN COOPER

DANIEL PORRITT

ÁINE PRITCHETT

ANNIE MERCER

ISABELLA NARDUZZO

JAMES ORMISTON

DIANA STASIUK

EVIE SEYMOUR

OLLIE CLAYTON

ISABELLE HAMMOND

ELEANOR CANNING

SRISAUL BUDDHA

ISABELLE COMINS

HONEY VENABLES

ALFREDA BARROSO TAYLOR

ANYA OLEINIK

THALIA BUCK

POPPY BIRCH

GRAHAM IWI