What's Your Story?

What’s Your Story?

Published by Writing on the Wall Copyright Š remains with the authors, 2013 Writing on the Wall info@writingonthewall.org.uk 0151 703 0020 www.writingonthewall.org.uk

What’s Your Story?

2013

Contents Foreword............................................................................................i Maria Abernethy................................................................................ 1 Andy Green ....................................................................................... 6 Sharon McDermott .......................................................................... 11 Aidan Quinn .................................................................................... 16 Anne Pritchard ................................................................................ 20 Alan Barnes ..................................................................................... 25 Helen Windel ................................................................................... 30 Rose Thomas .................................................................................. 35 David Colin Day .............................................................................. 39 Gladys Williams ............................................................................ 412 Antonia Poole ................................................................................ 478 Sue Douglas .................................................................................... 52 Tracey Hylton .................................................................................. 56 Ann McDermott ............................................................................... 62 Eileen Kyriacou ............................................................................... 65 Eric Radcliffe ................................................................................... 72 Eddie Roberts ................................................................................. 78 Rochelle Ellis .................................................................................. 83 Paul McGuire ................................................................................... 85 Sophie Smith ................................................................................... 90

Foreword The people whose work you are about to read have made the journey from participants on a creative writing course, to becoming writers themselves. We are very proud of them and thank them for their dedication to the course and for sharing with us their superb writing.

The stories in this book come from What’s Your Story?, a course that aims to use creative writing and storytelling to connect individuals and develop opportunities for selfexpression. It also supports the participants in developing their skills and their confidence, and encourages them in continuing their own writing and taking up further opportunities for learning and training.

To write is to find a way to express yourself, to tell your story, whether it is a direct recounting of something from life, a fictional reworking of a lived experienced or a complete fiction. The work here covers the whole range – a testament to the imagination of the writers and the new skills they have learnt during the course.

We’d like to offer our thanks to the workshop tutors, Paula Currie and Colin Watts, our funders European Social Fund, Skills Funding Agency and Arts Council England, our partners, Croxteth Communiversity, and special thanks to Sophie Smith who has been an invaluable support to the tutors and participants and who takes the credit for bringing together the content of this book.

Mike Morris & Madeline Heneghan

i

Maria Abernethy Maria is an artist who loves flash fiction and poetry. She's currently working on combining text and images to produce handmade artists' books Maria Abernethy 1

Hero Afterwards, when they said I’d been a hero, I shrugged, ‘Anyone would’ve done the same.’

Saturday morning. Temper tantrum screams shook the flat.

Again. She could do without this. The iron hissed as she lifted Nate, struggling, into his pram. Maybe fresh air would help, and they needed milk anyway. Slamming the door she headed for the High Street, pushing through crowds intent on getting to the match.

Rugby was my life. Parking the car at the ground, I glanced along High Street. Crazy busy. I remembered Dad’s face when I got picked for Wales. Ecstatic. He’d been proud of me then. Before the debts, before the match fixing. At his funeral last month I’d sworn I’d give it up, but I hadn’t.

Nate was howling. She couldn’t find the milk. They’d changed the aisles again. The shopkeeper rolled his eyes, ‘Move your pram, love, people can’t get past.’

She left him by the till for a minute; she swore it was a minute. Nate was gone.

At the club door, I heard her. The woman, frantic, calling for her child. We saw him at the same time. In the road. Heard the car’s engine. Somebody do something. I knew I’d get there first. Muscles contracted, adrenaline, fear. I ran like I was in the Six Nations or something. I felt the child’s breath on my face as I lifted him off the ground, surprised at how light he was, how fragile. I flung him towards his mother, towards safety. Her face registering relief, thanks, shock.

Why shock? I felt the impact of the car. Then I saw Dad and I knew.

2 What’s Your Story?

Afterwards, they said I’d been a hero. I shrugged, ‘Anyone would’ve done the same.’

I felt Dad’s arm around me as he smiled into my eyes, ‘Yes, but it was you who did.’

Wish You Were Here I climb to the top of the hill, breathless, legs aching. In the valley the road twists and turns, running off into the distance.

The afternoon sun hits the roofs below and I feel its soft beat on my head. My eyes close.

June 1993. Lying here, giggling with Louise. Seven years of friendship had seen us through teenage doubts and first boyfriends, with the sounds of Madonna and Wham playing in the background. That summer we were making plans for university in September. So excited. As soon as she got back from travelling with her parents, we’d be gone. I went to wave them off. At the station, as the whistle shrieked, we clung together. Her familiar strawberry scent catching my breath, ‘I’ll miss you.’

For six weeks she sent postcards.

Yesterday we were packing, Tom and I. The sum of our lives in boxes marked ‘kitchen’, ‘bedroom’, ‘fragile.’ His eyes sad, knowing, ‘Do you still want this?’

In his hand a postcard. The last one she’d sent. I can read the words without eyes, they’re burnt into my memory. A goodbye, although she didn’t know it.

‘Wish you were here. Love you, Louise xx’ Her scrawly handwriting, her kisses. The plane went down over the Pacific. No survivors. I carried that postcard around for weeks. Put it on my dresser, then in my drawer and finally in a box in the attic.

The sun’s dipping now, casting a glow over the distant hills. If I half-close my eyes I could be anywhere, somewhere Maria Abernethy 3

else, someone else. In the house, I know, Tom is waiting.

Taking a breath I head off down the hill. One last look behind me. Twenty years, Louise, and still I wish you were here.

Connect The dream woke Pete, his eyes damp. Surprised, once again, that he could cry in his sleep. Him and Bill, nine years old, just before Christmas. The ice thick upon the lake in the park, and the ducks begging for the tingle of glove-warmed bread in their open beaks. In reality it had been a magical day. In the dream, though, Bill, always adventurous, had run onto the ice. Pete, horrified, had watched as the cracks split the air. Bill had fallen. Out of reach.

Stretching, Pete tries to shake off the dream’s grasp.

Coffee aroma comfort. Work to do. The camera review wouldn’t write itself.

An hour later, Pete finds himself at the park. We, his tears, see him as the frosty air bites his cheek, and the woollen hat blankets his head. Work to do. We are ready. As he walks along below us, we dance in the spaces between the branches, we glint on the leaves and make patterns in the shadows on the path before him. But he doesn’t see. He pulls out the camera. He’s looking for that perfect shot. He doesn’t yet know that beauty can lie in the imperfections.

Pete navigates the stepping-stones and heads towards the lake. We sparkle on the grass and fly on the notes the birds sing, but he’s oblivious.

The raucous geese, the flapping swans, their food hidden in the deep freeze, rush towards him. Sensing our moment we glimmer on the ducks’ backs, glisten on the ice, rush along inside his breath as it hangs misty by his mouth. Pete stoops to capture the scene. Through the lens he sees the ducks, the lake frozen, Bill as a man now, in danger of being lost to the ice. On the bank, just out of focus, he sees the woman 4 What’s Your Story?

with the double buggy. A reminder. An admonition. Joined souls in one womb.

‘Stop fighting, you two!’

We wash his salty eyes and send blood bouncing through his veins, pounding, triumphant. Job done.

At home, the phone is cool in Pete’s hand. His fingers lingering over the familiar name. Ringing. Answered.

‘Bill, I’m sorry.’

The umbilical cord that nourished them still connecting.

That night Pete slept. We rode on the dew with the first rays of sunlight as it slipped between his curtains. The pillow beneath his cheek was dry.

Maria Abernethy 5

Andy Green Andy Green is more or less retired and doesn’t do very much; he’s open to suggestions. He lives on the Wirral with his beautiful wife; no cats or dogs. Not even a goldfish.

6 What’s Your Story?

The People Show Charles didn’t have to wait long for his train, its arrival announced by a distant rattling and then the gust of wind as it pushed the air in the tunnel before it. Then the reflection of the headlight on the tunnel sides, and finally the train itself squealed to a halt. The doors slid open; passengers get out, Charles got in. He unhitched his rucksack and put it on a seat before settling down opposite.

This was the final leg of the journey home from London, and he was thinking of home cooked dinner as the train lurched forward. The tunnel dipped under the river, but there was no evidence of that on the train. Charles felt a little cheated. That’s the problem with the underground, he thought; it gives no sense of where you’re travelling…or what you’re travelling through.

Perhaps along this particular section someone should paint some fluorescent fish on the tunnel walls or under water sounds could be piped through the train’s PA, just to make the point.

At the next station a couple got on – a man and a woman festooned with Primark bags. They sat opposite each other, next to Charles. He could see the man diagonally opposite him quite easily, and flicked his eyes over him in that ‘I’m not really looking at you,’ move that people make when they’re on a train or bus…or God forbid, in a lift. Charles decided that the man was in his late 20s. He was thin, with sharp features, and wore blue jeans topped with a grey T-shirt and khaki combat jacket.

Getting a glimpse of the woman was a bit more difficult. Because she was sitting next to him, Charles had to slide his eyes right, and pretend to look out of the window – not a convincing move as the train was still in the tunnel and there really wasn’t anything to see outside.

Nevertheless, he was satisfied that he had accomplished the move without drawing attention to himself.

Andy Green 7

He was rewarded with a glimpse of a woman in her early 20’s, hair hauled back into a pony tail, a style that Charles knew as a 'Croydon facelift'. His gaze dropped almost automatically towards their feet; you can tell a lot from the shoes that people were wearing – but in this case all he could see was two pairs of legs disappearing into a sea of Primark brown carriers. He presumed that the man would be wearing white trainers – probably a bit scruffy. He wasn’t too sure about the woman; if she was wearing trainers they would be clean – not long out of the washing machine, nestling neatly below her torn but crisply pressed jeans.

Charles categorized her fashion sense as ‘distressed chic’.

Charles knew that it wasn’t really good manners to earwig other people’s conversations, but sometimes it’s hard not to.

Everyone does it. A word or a phrase just implants itself, and then…you’re just hooked. Especially if the people are talking just a bit too loudly. It must have been the word ‘dinner’ in this case. It was the man who was speaking.

‘So we’re going to dinner with her again then.’ Charles had the impression that the woman pursed her lips a little before answering.

‘Looks like we’ve been invited. I hope she’s not pissed this time.’

‘Yeah. Last time it was rubbish. All burnt. It was embarrassing – what she was saying. I mean, there are things about anatomy you just don’t want to bloody know, aren’t there?’ The train emerged from the tunnel and the man looked out of the window for a minute, taking in the rail side landscape of Birkenhead. ‘Anyway; do you know what we’re having?’

‘Tangerine chicken, I think she said.’

‘Tangerine chicken? What’s that?’

‘Dunno really; it must be like you do duck – you know, duck with orange. You do duck with orange, don’t you?’

‘Suppose so.’ The man furrowed his brow in thought.

‘What’s a tangerine like, anyway?’

8 What’s Your Story?

‘It’s a bit like a mandarin.’

‘Mandarin. I thought that’s a place.’

‘Don’t think so. It’s a language, I think.’

‘So what’s that got to do with chicken?’

The train drew alongside the platform and they gathered their bags and stood up to get off, the woman explaining as they did.

‘It’s a language…but it’s also a little orange. A bit like a tangerine is.’

‘You mean tangerine is a language as well?’

‘No, no, not a language. A little orange.’

The doors slid shut and Charles was cut off from the rest of the conversation. A lucky escape. He’d been on the point of sharing with them his superior knowledge gleaned from his holiday in Morocco the previous winter. Best keep quiet, he thought. But he’d been well brought up and he knew that if ever you were to interrupt somebody’s conversation, you should always say ‘Excuse me,’ and he had briefly thought of saying ‘Excuse me, but maybe it’s not tangerine chicken, but…chicken tagine.’ In his mind’s eye he saw two heads turning to him and one of them uttering the traditional Scouse greeting, ‘Piss off smart arse. Mind your own fucking business.’ He supposed that it would have been the woman who would have said it. Feisty, they are, Scouse women.

Better to keep silent.

On the platform the man and the woman were shaking with laughter. Almost crying.

‘Did you clock that bloke next to us? He was trying so hard to look as though he wasn’t trying to look at us.’ She stuck an arm out and caught a lamppost in its crook, circling it twice, still laughing. ‘I mean, he was hanging on to every word. I was sure he was gonna say something.’

‘Yeah. He almost did. We’ve got to work on this. I mean, we’ve got this contract from Merseytravel for theatre on the Andy Green 9

trains and buses, so we need some more material – but that was great start.’

10 What’s Your Story?

Sharon McDermott Sharon has a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Theatre Studies, and also completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism where she had various articles published in various regional newspapers and gained bylines!

A former '08 Ambassador with a keen interest in the Arts as well as the environment, plus a fascination with the concept of time travel; this is all reflected in her short stories and poems.

Sharon McDermott 11

The Meeting Just before she reached the door, Janet paused. Did she really want to do this, to see him now? It had been so long 12 months since she last saw him. Anyway, she thought, did he want to see her?

Alright, there had been the move away to college. Then the holiday jobs and of course she'd had other boyfriends.

Surely, then, this was for the best: to finish it once and for all? She'd phoned him the first chance she'd got when she returned home. They'd arranged to meet at the local wine bar.

Now he was in the bar, behind that door, and it suddenly struck her: she had actually been engaged to him. Had never broken it off - until maybe now.

Janet's hand poised on the door handle, ready to tell Ben everything…

A Fine Romance It was much deeper than she'd thought. The feeling of disappointment, disillusion - horror even, at the realisation.

Her heart had felt so fragile, like china, when she first saw him.

They spoke a few times in the coffee shop. He never said a lot; just enough for her to think, yes, this could be the one.

It wasn't that she was looking for romance when they'd met.

She'd only wanted a café latte. But they had the same interests so she gave him her phone number and was elated when he said decisively, 'I'll call you'.

But a day went by, two days, a week turned into two weeks and no telephone call.

It was a month later and she was getting nearer the café.

She went inside, gave her order and had been sitting down 12 What’s Your Story?

for five minutes when the most extraordinary thing happened. She simply couldn't believe it. He actually approached the male waiter and started kissing him, reservedly at first, then passionately. Initially she was surprised, but then she thought was he trying to make her jealous? and how immature that would be, so simply lost her patience, turned and left the cafĂŠ.

The Celebrity The man stood there calmly taking his time at the only manned counter in the bank, while I stand sixth in the queue waiting to be served trying not to get annoyed! Two young men stand alongside him near the counter, grinning and slyly watching him.

He just looked strange to me, dressed in a long black woollen coat in May, until a young woman joins the stationary queue behind me and says to me, 'You know who that is, don't you? It's David Gest.'

She's clearly delighted as I think, who's that?

I reply, ‘Is it? Well...’ thinking I really just need to pay in this cheque.

Eventually a young female member of staff began to ask the customers in the queue 'Do you need help?' but it's like time has stood still for them, until an elderly man in front of me starts to complain and asks, 'Who is he anyway?' indicating David Gest who looks surprised at this question.

An aroma of hot dogs and chips emanate through the door as a customer enters eating, making me almost salivate, I'm already so very hungry, having only eaten an apple for breakfast!

I say to Imogen as it's stated on her identity badge, 'I've just got to pay in a cheque and I've tried twice to pay it into the machines but it's just come back out at me.'

'Okay I'll be back in a minute.' she replied as she serves and tries to calm the irate elderly man whose face has Sharon McDermott 13

turned bright red. Suddenly he clutches his chest and then collapses, leaving Imogen asking, 'Is there a doctor here at all?'

Five minutes which seem like an eternity pass and nobody steps forward as the man goes into cardiac arrest and then dies. The other customers look on in horror and then resentment as they slowly walk closer towards the celebrity, giving him a menacing look as they surround him.

The Jogger Sarah never imagined herself jogging before, although she lived opposite Sefton Park and had seen lots of females jogging around the park in the five years she'd lived there.

But then she watched the Olympic Games on television and was inspired finally to get fit, so started, usually three times a week, to go jogging.

One rare, sunny Saturday morning in the winter she jogged as far as to the boating lake from Lark Lane and then around the field of hope, when she heard rapid footsteps behind her. They got louder as they got nearer, and she remembered a time when a man ran behind her and indecently assaulted her; but that was late at night and in the dark, she thought. This was during daylight, so she glanced behind to see to her delight it was actually a handsome, blond man with the most piercing blue eyes. She smiled and said, 'Hi', thinking carpe diem.

He replied, 'Hi, how are you?'

Later they were in the park cafĂŠ having lunch and discovered they both shared a lot of interests, not just jogging. Robert was also a graduate of English Literature, and obviously cared for the environment, working as a park ranger in the restored former festival garden site. He also wrote stories in his spare time and liked visiting the theatre.

14 What’s Your Story?

An hour later when the waiter approached Sarah and Robert's table and gave Robert a full kiss on the mouth, Sarah looked on open mouthed in amazement as Robert said, 'Sarah, meet Peter, my boyfriend.'

Sharon McDermott 15

Aidan Quinn My name is Aidan Quinn, I am 82 years old, and am on this course to try and write from a completely autobiographical point of view. Although I have written nothing of note since 1947, I have learned a great deal from my tutors and colleagues on the course, and hope to carry on writing as a purely personal narrative.

16 What’s Your Story?

The Biter Bit The two attractive brunettes entered their favourite Italian restaurant, and were ushered to their table. It had been an exhausting period for both of them, but finally all their work was about to pay dividends. Both girls had decided to celebrate the occasion.

‘I think we deserve a treat,’ said Annette to Mary, as she studied the menu. ‘But first let's have a celebratory drink.'

Having both ordered pasta and salad they settled down to discuss the forthcoming show and were engrossed in conversation, when a rather untidy individual approached their table.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t little Annie Drake,’ he said.

Annette froze at the sound of a voice she had hoped never to hear again, and it brought back memories of her misspent youth. As a teenager, she had been part of a wild child group who, under the tutelage of a petty crook named Charley Williams, had spent their time shoplifting in major stores. She and several gang members had been caught and spent time in a juvenile detention centre while Charley had got away scot-free. Fortunately, Annette’s parents had supported her and after going back to school, she earned herself a place and a degree in Art College. Now her past seemed to have caught up with her.

‘I need a favour,’ said Charley, ‘and you’re going to help, otherwise your employers are going to find out about your record. Ring this number and I’ll let you know what I want.’

With that, he left the girls to ponder his remarks.

Annette was terror stricken, left her friend without an explanation and rushed home to make the phone call, which might ruin the career she had made for herself.

‘What exactly do want after all these years?‘ she asked.

‘All your new designs,’ was the curt reply.

‘Just let me know when and where,’ and Charley hung up.

Aidan Quinn 17

After a sleepless night, Annette finally came to a decision, and arriving at her desk asked to see Liz Jackson, the head of the company, and made a clean breast of her past, telling Liz she would rather leave than let down the person who had given her a chance at a career. Liz listened to the whole story, and said, ‘First, we inform the police, and you leave the rest to me.’

Some days later, Annette met Charley at the restaurant where he had found her and handed over the designs. She did not see, as he left, two burly men hustle him in to a car.

Sometime later, Annette discovered Charley had been arrested…and Liz Jackson sat at her desk, chuckling at the thought of her main rival’s discomfiture on discovering the designs she had paid so much for were discards from previous years!

My Hero Timmy was seven years old and lived in a country house with his parents and a small scruffy mongrel dog of uncertain breeding called Rover. Although he was going to the local school, playing in the huge garden with his dog was a great delight. At the end of the garden was a thick bushy fence that marked the boundary, and Timmy was always aware of his mother’s warning.

‘Remember, Timmy, never, never go beyond the fence!

There is a big pond there that is too deep for little boys,’ said Mother.

So Timmy carried on playing in his garden, until one day, Mother decided, as it was his birthday, there would be a party, and asked several of his schoolmates to join him in the festivities. It was a bright sunny day and the children were enjoying themselves with fun and games, when one of the children heard a sudden splash.

18 What’s Your Story?

‘Timmy,’ said Janet. ‘I think somebody has got through the hedge and fallen into the water. Go and call Mother.’

After a check-up, it was discovered that the only person missing was Rover, but they could all hear him barking at the sound of a rapidly departing vehicle. A quick investigation of the pond by Timmy’s parents found Rover yelping at a wriggling sack floating in the pool.

‘Quick,’ said Timmy’s father. ‘Run and get my fishing rod.’

Timmy ran to the shed, returning with the rod, which father cast and snagged the sinking bag.

To everybody’s amazement, when they opened the sack, it contained four tiny puppies that someone had cruelly tried to drown, and Timmy’s scruffy canine became the hero of the hour!

Aidan Quinn 19

Anne Pritchard I’ve always enjoyed reading and have recently had some time to devote to writing resulting in me completing a number of chapters of a novel based on my parent’s life story. I’m planning to complete an MA Writing course at John Moores University later this year.

20 What’s Your Story?

Missing She’d often wondered what it would feel like to be under the water, down at the bottom of the sea. Wet, sodden, bedraggled, like you see the bodies being lifted out of the water on murder stories on the telly. Now she knew. She felt like a blown-up balloon, swollen and heavy, her hair hanging wet and straggly around her face.

It must be filthy, she thought. She hated having dirty hair.

Everyone knows the River Mersey is filthy, no one would ever dream of going swimming in it. Even paddling in it is chancy, she thought.

Bubbles were getting up her nose and kind of digesting in her stomach. She’d had something to eat earlier and now she felt so full, so bloated with everything. Would anyone find her, she thought?

It’s too late anyway, she smiled to herself. There’d be no point.

She should have stayed with her cousin – she’d told her to – but she’d gone wandering off alone to find the public toilets.

They’d been on their way to see their Auntie Sally in Moreton. They always went with her cousin’s mum in the summer holidays, but this time they’d decided to go by themselves. She wanted to thank her for the birthday present she’d sent her for her 10th birthday last week. It was a lovely new handbag, black shiny patent leather; they were all the go. But they didn’t have any money for the buses and the ferry ride. They decided to ask people for money once they were in the town centre. They made up a tale saying they’d lost their money for the ferry. People soon started giving them money. Sixpence here, threepence there, they soon had two and six and then a couple of bob. This is easy, they thought.

Anne Pritchard 21

She always liked being with her big cousin. She was only a year older than her, but she always felt safe with her. Her mum had told her that she was a very longed-for baby. Her mum was in her late forties when she’d had her and they’d given up the hope of having any children by then. Her cousin had told her a secret - that her dad had been married before and she’d heard the family talking, saying that they didn’t think he’d been divorced before he’d married her mum. Her cousin said that meant she was illegitimate. It sounded like some sort of disease; but I’m not ill, she thought.

They got on the ferry. There was a cool breeze and they huddled up to each other for warmth. They hadn’t brought a jacket; it was sunny when they left and they were looking forward to going to the beach, five minutes’ walk away from Auntie Sally’s house. She always took them there when they visited her.

There was a boy who started to talk to them on the ferry.

He wanted to lend them his jacket but they said no. He had long hair and long pointed winklepickers on. He asked them where they were going. He said he lived near there. He’d been shopping in Liverpool, he said. He’d been to NEMS to listen to the latest Rolling Stones record. Did they like the Rolling Stones?, he asked. They’d seen them on Top of the Pops last night. Her mum didn’t like them, said they were a shower of scruffs who couldn’t sing.

‘Don’t hang around with boys like that,’ she’d said, ‘they’re trouble.’

They reached Seacombe Ferry. Her cousin went into the sweet shop by the bus stand to get some Polo Mints. They always got them for the bus journey ‘cause they always felt sick with the motion of the bus and the mints helped to settle their stomach; that’s what her cousin’s mum said, but she thought it was the cigarette smoke that made them feel sick, not the motion of the bus. They always went on the top deck 22 What’s Your Story?

so she could smoke up there. They always sat right at the front ‘cause they liked to look out of the big front window.

They got off the bus and her cousin told her to keep with her and that they’d go to the shop together, but she needed to spend a penny and went running off to the lav. It was dark and smelly inside - only two cubicles, no toilet paper. She balanced herself over the toilet seat so as not to touch it, her mum had always told her to do that, you could get all kinds of diseases from toilet seats, she’d said. She didn’t want to touch the wooden chain handle either, so she pulled her cardigan sleeve down and wound it round her hand and then pulled, hoping for the best. It flushed ok, making a loud clanging noise.

Just as she walked out of the cubicle she nearly bumped into someone standing just outside.

It was him, the boy from the ferry.

‘The men’s is next door,’ she started to say, but didn’t have a chance to finish as she felt his hand grab her new bag. He ran off towards the docks with it. She didn’t want him to get away with it. It didn’t have much in it but she loved that new bag, it matched her new black patent shoes her mum had bought her for her birthday. She ran as fast as she could, she was catching up to him. He’d stopped and was opening the bag, fishing inside to see if there was anything worthwhile in it.

She could hear him swearing as he realised there was nothing worthwhile in the bag. He threw it at her in disgust; more swear words coming out of his mouth than she’d never heard before. A sharp gust of wind blew the bag and it landed in the river. She didn’t know why she did it, but her instincts took over and she jumped into the river after it.

She got a fright when she hit the water and felt how cold it was; she didn’t realise it would be so icy cold and then as she gasped she took in a big gulp of black oil. She started to choke and loose her breath. She began to panic, she wished she’d learnt to swim. She started to sink lower.

Anne Pritchard 23

Her cousin had bought the Polo Mints and was waiting at the bus stand looking everywhere for her.

Where has she got to? The bus’ll be here in a minute and the next one’s another half hour's wait. She was getting annoyed.

She ran over to the toilets to see what was holding her up, shouting her name as she went in, but it was empty.

She didn’t know what to do next. She ran back to the bus stand and checked the timetable again.

Perhaps if I wait here she’ll eventually come, she thought.

24 What’s Your Story?

Alan Barnes The thesaurus is my friend, and comrade, my buddy and my pal, my associate and companion, my ally, collaborator, helper. My mate, my colleague, my...

Alan Barnes 25

It’s Raining ‘It’s raining! Granddad, it’s raining. You’ve got to come in!’

The man was gazing skyward watching the flare as it slowly floated back to earth.

‘Don’t worry Addy, this rain’s not that bad.’ The old man pulled down the waxed hood and removed the large eye protectors. ‘See, I’ve taken all the right precautions. Besides, this is a harmless shower. More like the rain we used to get before the exchange, look, the steps aren’t burning at all.’

The man threw off the long hooded duster and sat back on the rough wooden bench under the shelter of the porch.

Addy settled herself beside him.

‘Mum said we should be careful of any rain. She said it can all hurt us.’ The child looked at her granddad with concern etched deep within her eyes.

‘Well of course your mother’s right, pup. She’s always right, just like my Magdelain was. She’s certainly her mother’s daughter, just as you are. You listen to your mother, she knows best. I’m nothing but a silly old man who sometimes forgets.’

‘Granddad? What was it like? Before the exchange? I’ve seen pictures in class, and it looked so nice.’

He turned his gaze from her and looked wistfully out across the barren landscape. Thoughts of how it used to be whirling around his mind. Scenes from his own far distant childhood surfacing. Splashing in puddles made by the rain, thoughts that gave way to those of his teenage years swimming in the sea along the coast. The first time he kissed her grandmother it was raining, the sweet fresh water running down her face, her dark curls plastered to her soft pale skin. No kiss had ever been so sweet, so fresh, so…

‘Granddad. Was it nice?’ the young girl tugged on his sleeve, jolting him back from his odyssey, staring up into his pale far away eyes.

26 What’s Your Story?

‘Nice? Nice, yes it was wonderful.’ His eyes were focusing on some far distant memory. ‘And it will be again. One day you’ll see how wonderful it can be. We had long winters with snow, and it seemed to rain almost every day, but rain was good, it brought life. Then in summer the trees would be so green, flowers of every colour, colours so vibrant, so vibrant it would take your breath away.’

With an air of excitement in her voice his granddaughter interrupted. ‘They have trees in the Dome Granddad, and animals.’

‘I would imagine they have. And if you do well in class you might go there when you’re older.’

Now with added wide-eyed enthusiasm she continued, ‘And will you and Mummy come too, Granddad?’

The man looked at her with a wry smile on his face. ‘No, not me, child. I’m too old now. I won’t be around when that happens.’

The girl looked away from him, pondering his words. ‘Will things really be wonderful again, Granddad?’

He placed one arm around her young delicate shoulders gently pulling her into him. ‘Of course they will child. Mother Nature will see to that. No matter what we do she will always restore the balance. You can trust in that.’

‘Addy! Addy?’ her mother’s voice called through the open door. ‘Come on in now love, and bring your Granddad.’

The young girl jumped up and pulled on her Granddad’s hand. ‘Come on, Granddad. Mummy’s calling. The butcher’s boys have been and there’s a feast tonight for Elly. But Elly’s not here.’

The old man held her tiny hand in his for a brief moment thinking how small, how vulnerable she was, and wishing he could protect her forever from what this world had become, before releasing her. ‘You go on, Addy. I’m staying here.’

The girl ran off, no cares, no worries weighing her down, and the man hoped with all his might that she would inherit the world he had once known.

Alan Barnes 27

‘Dad?’ his daughter’s voice sailed through the air and his thoughts. ‘Are you alright, Dad?’ He turned to look up at her, momentarily expecting to see the face of his long departed Magdelain. But the voice now belonged to his little girl, all grown up, with concern for her old dad just visible behind those flecked blue eyes. Just like her mother’s.

The smile she’d become so accustomed to seeing, the one her mother always said could light up any room, spread across his face as he raised his hand to take hers. As she placed her hand in his and felt him grasp her, she bit her lip in an attempt to fight back the sudden, inexplicable rush of tears welling up inside. The strong sinewy hands she’d known all her life, the hands that had protected her, and helped her, now felt weak, feeble, and the shock wave reverberated through her very core.

‘Dad?’ ‘It’s OK, Jess, I’m OK.’ He stared deep into her soul, the truth spoken by his eyes, not by his lips.

‘Dad!’ her mouth, her vocal chords unable to form any other words, although a thousand surged through her mind.

‘Don’t worry yourself, lovely. I’ve already sent up the flare.

The butcher’s boys will have turned around by now and be on their way back. There’ll be another feast tomorrow, in my memory. Fresh meat for the whole house. Make sure Addy gets her fair share, she needs all the protein she can get.’

His hand slipped from hers, his arm too weak to support itself. ‘You go now, Jessy. Go on in to Addy, she’s the one who needs you.’

Sitting beside him, she took both his hands in hers. ‘No, Dad. I’ll wait here. I’ll wait till they come back to the porch.’

28 What’s Your Story?

Helen Windel Helen likes writing short stories and sometimes poems. She likes eating while thinking about an idea and her notebook is full of cake crumbs.

Helen Windel 29

Just Me Why is it that the final indignities are the sharpest memories?

The ones that wake me at night with violent stabs of regret.

I have to rummage around for slippery sounds of your voice, your laughter, tantalisingly almost tangible but not quite.

You were happy once – my mantra when those last suffering days are the ones I remember.

It is the firsts that floor me – cup of tea, Friday night in, walk in the park, Christmas card; Just me.

I don't believe we'll meet again except in slumber's yearning.

The best I can do is remember you while the world keeps turning and turning and turning.

30 What’s Your Story?

Sweet Talk We met outside George Henry Lee. It was down from the train station, up from the bus station, in the middle.

Everything's changed now. The city's shifted west towards the river. He told me I looked beautiful like in a preRaphaelite painting. I told him I liked his T-shirt. We slipped into the bubbling turbulence of people and let them determine our direction.

He bought us a pack of donuts, five for a pound, from one of those food stands. My mouth welled with saliva as the warm, sweet smell seemed to rest on my tongue while we waited in the queue. We sat on a bench to eat them. My mum told me they were full of stodge and never let me have one but I loved them. They were greasy yet crunchy with sugar, and we both had to keep licking our lips. We sucked the sugary debris from our fingertips like the tide pulling sand from smooth pebbles.

He said he'd bought me something. It was a book. He smiled cheekily and told me he wanted to politically subvert me. I said that was OK but only if he kept his hands to himself. When he laughed, he tipped his head back and projected his happiness up and out into the world. A busker was singing 'Days' by The Kinks and it somehow made me feel nostalgia for the moment I was in. We both watched the streams of life floating past us as we perched on our island, the wooden slats of the bench pressing their solidity into our backs.

At some point we drifted towards Bold Street and a lone pigeon swooped low over our heads to land. I said I wondered if it was going to eat our crumbs. He said we always leave footprints wherever we go, and he looked sad.

At the crossing we stood obediently waiting for the green man, our signal to keep going. He walked me to the station where the stale-sweet smell of underground drifted up to Helen Windel 31

meet us before it parted us. I tasted sugar on his lips. He said he wished we had more time. I said we could if things were different. He stepped backwards, away, pulled into the sea of people by a strong current. It tugged him back to her.

I tasted salt on my lips.

Lost and Found I watched him devour the full English breakfast. Half a hash brown, a mushroom, a strand of bacon skewered onto the fork and engulfed in his ravenous mouth. Violent chewing and a laboured swallow. Next he scooped up some egg and baked beans, the runny yolk and tomato sauce alighting several strands of his thick grey moustache in his haste. I noticed a quivering drop of yolk fall like a tear from his moustache and cascade down his matted beard before dropping back to his plate ready to be churned up again. He reached out to pick up a mug of coffee, and I breathed in stale sweat and rain-dampened clothes.

It was his eyes that had triggered something, a memory, a snapshot. It took me weeks to figure it out. I walked past him every day, slumped low in the shop doorway cocooned in a khaki sleeping bag. Sometimes his knees were drawn up, shielding him from the wind, the people, life. Other times his head lolled while his arms lay open at his sides in defenceless sleep. Always I saw the tin box tucked somewhere behind him, made visible by the silvery lines and dents scratched into the black veneer.

He saw me eyeing the shoebox-sized container sitting next to him on the red faux leather seat of our booth. His gaze shifted to the window but was blind to the determined bustle of weak winter dawn on Tottenham Court Road. As he reflected I studied his reflection in the grease-streaked glass. Lit by the bulb hanging low over our table, his face appeared as an apparition surrounded by darkness. I was sole witness to the lines and grooves in the dust-caked skin 32 What’s Your Story?

around his eyes, troubled now as they were then.

Passionate and earnest they had looked back at me from a hauntingly gaunt face in a photograph. There was nothing and no one in existence to catalogue his transition from youth. To me he had aged 25 years in a day, and I lamented the loss of time.

He placed the knife and fork neatly on the plate when he had finished then nodded a thanks to me. I watched his flimsily framed limbs negotiate his escape from the booth.

Once upright, he looked fiercely down at me, his eyes made more brilliant by the frailty surrounding them. He turned and left.

It took several moments for me to realise he had left the box behind. I wondered at the significance as my coffee turned cold. With apprehension I gingerly picked up the box as I left, heading home to set free the secrets lost to time.

Helen Windel 33

Rose Thomas I was born in Liverpool and spent most of my life wishing I was an artist, so writing became the picture I could not put on canvas. After ten years of writing my novel I proudly presented the finished article to Writing on the Wall.

With their help and my editor Jenny Newman, I have written my novel to the required level and in the process of completing my first draft. It has been a wonderful experience bringing my work up to standard, by correcting mistakes and being open to change.

34 What’s Your Story?

Now That I’ve Found the Words is about how Elizabeth struggled to overcome racism and betrayal of friendship in 40s Liverpool. Her determination to evolve from childhood to adulthood and find the love she craves leaves her vulnerable. See her grow, feel her pain and love her determination.

Now That I’ve Found the Words In the distance church bells rang.

Drumming his fingers on the dashboard, 'That bloody racket is to wake the godly,' Liam said. 'I'd rather listen to Jonny Mathis.'

I would too. I felt cleansed that morning and believed I'd washed away any memory of Slim. Sandbagged them somewhere in the depths of my brain, and I did not want to rescue them.

Looking at Liam with his sunglasses perched on the end of his nose I loved him more than ever. He made me feel safe and able to trust again. Everything before I'd met him seemed unreal.

Mandy was still in my head and I wished she could be at my wedding, but it was something I knew could never happen. She too was with the man she loved, and I hoped she was as happy as I was.

Dropping me off at the front door, 'See you tomorrow,’ Liam said. ‘Five thirty, don't be late.'

'I won't.'

Five thirty couldn't come fast enough as my usual slow walk to the bus stop had turned into an obstacle course, trying to dodge people I knew by waving to them instead of stopping for a chat.

Once home, I raced up the stairs, stripped off my work clothes, and almost broke my leg jumping into the bath. Fully dressed and my wind-tangled hair patted in place, I was Rose Thomas 35

ready by six forty five and starving. Digging my fork into the liver and onions before mother could put my plate on the table.

'Eat slowly,' she snapped, 'you're not catching a train.’

Without looking up, 'No but I could be taking a ride in a wedding car.’

Dad's plate of food crashed to the floor. Nothing could be salvaged as the onions, potatoes, liver and gravy slithered across the shiny surface.

Mother, with her hands still apart, stood riveted to the spot. 'Wedding car?’

‘Yes, Liam has asked me to marry him.'

Dad glowed with pride, as he tried to shovel up his dinner before mother recovered from the shock. Now she was too busy insisting I should wear white.

'No I've decided Mother, cream and red accessories.’

'Red. My god, what will the vicar say?’ Putting her hand on her forehead she wrestled with a chair stuck underneath the table. Sitting with her legs apart she hung her head waiting for me to respond. Surely, she must have thought, I'd back down. Tell her she was right and I would be wearing white.

'Mother,’ she looked up, 'the vicar is not invited.'

Liam hooting the horn saved me from a long drawn out argument. Putting on a hint of lipstick and grabbing hold of my favourite cardigan, which reminded me spring hadn't quite arrived but the bite of winter had lost its sting.

Giving mother a reassuring pat on the shoulder, I left before she recovered from her ordeal, dismissed what I wanted, and dragged out some off-white lace material, a boxful of tangled cotton reels, and insist she'd make my wedding dress.

Liam sat in the car with a grin on his face as we sped off towards the flat. He was still grinning when he opened the flat door and Abigail jumped out of the shadows with her new boyfriend trailing shyly behind her. Stunned to see her, I 36 What’s Your Story?

was rendered speechless. After the initial shock we settled down to catch up, leaving the two men fussing about in the kitchen. Liam struggled with a tray of drinks, leaving Abigail's boyfriend to bring in snacks of cheese, crackers and packets of crisps. I could see a tiny box hidden behind the glasses.

Eyeing the box, I wondered if it was something for me, and apprehensive it might be something for Abigail.

Sitting beside me, 'Hope you like it,' Liam said, handing me the leather-bound object. With shaking hands, I opened the lid exposing an engagement ring nestled on a cushion of blue velvet. Liam leaned towards me, and slipped the small diamond ring on my finger.

With tears rolling down my cheeks, he laughed as my words became jumbled trying to thank him and crying at the same time. Abigail had tears in her eyes as well, when she held up her glass to toast our engagement.

It was at that point I knew Abigail and I had been on a long journey discovering who we were. From two bewildered young woman rushing into failure. Learning from our mistakes, and now we were embracing what lay ahead of us; still good friends holding each other’s secrets in our hearts.

Rose Thomas 37

David Colin Day David Colin Day, 79, from Barnston, Wirral. Since 1993 a retired Policy & Mgt. Advisor from West Lancashire District Council, Ormskirk. Perhaps previously obtaining a degree and commendation in History motivated me into having an interest in creative writing.

38 What’s Your Story?

Meeting Jack Frost Tap, tap, tap, on the window, what was that noise? It was the middle of the night as the young girl went to the window.

Opening the curtains the room was filled with a very bright light. Looking up she saw that there was a beautiful full moon in a clear sky from which the stars were twinkling down as if they were watching something.

The garden below looked to be full of shadows as the still of the night was interrupted by the shrill call of an owl. There was another noise and she wondered what it was, and where it came from.

Opening the window and looking out she saw a small shadow move across the garden. In the light of the moon she saw that it was the figure of a young boy. The figure looked like an elf dressed all in white with long pointed ears, and had long pointed fingers with little boots on the feet.

Being a little afraid, ‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘I am Jack Frost,’ came the reply.

‘Did you cry out before?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I caught my hand on the branch whilst I was making a pattern on the window.’

‘Then I will get you a plaster to put on that,’ and returning, placed the plaster upon his finger. She noticed that his fingers were very icy and she felt sorry for the young boy.

She noticed that there was a little tear running down the boy’s face and as it fell it turned into a small icicle.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

‘Why, I am warning everybody and everything that winter is on its way,’ said Jack. ‘I do this every year, making patterns on the windows and turning all the leaves from the trees into all the colours, so that everyone knows that winter is on its way. Although my hands are cold, I have a warm heart which helps me to do this work each year.’

‘You’re not a real boy then,’ she said.

David Colin Day 39

‘Well, no,’ came the reply, ‘but I am not unhappy because my friend is Peter Pan and he never grew up; so we often see each other, and his friend Tinker Bell also looks after us.

We spend most of the time at the end of the rainbow as it is so beautiful there, and we can look down between the clouds to see if any winter weather is coming.’

The following morning the young girl went to the window and saw it was full of beautiful patterns and looking down, the garden was also covered in a beautiful white frost. She felt pleased that she had met the small boy who had worked so hard during the night, and decided that she was going to tell her teacher about meeting him.

At school later that morning the teacher listened to the story, and smilingly said to the young girl that it was people who had cold hands who mostly had warm hearts, and people with warmth in their hearts were the ones that did good things like looking after others. The young girl then understood about Jack Frost and was happy to have met him.

40 What’s Your Story?

Gladys Williams I married when I was just 18 and divorced 15 years later. I have three married offspring, and seven grandchildren. I was educated at one of the first comprehensive schools in the North West, Gateacre Comprehensive. I attended Liverpool University as a mature student and went on to become a social worker in mental health. I retired three years ago and now enjoy writing and singing, yoga and Tai Chi. I live in a three bedroom terrace house and have a good social life.

For more details please consult my biography which may be available in about 20 years’ time! (Or just buy me a drink and I will tell all!)

Gladys Williams 41

Cashing In ‘So what’s it to be, best steak or sausages again?’ My wife asks with a definitive note of sarcasm, or is that just me reading something into this again? Am I being defensive, I wonder? These thoughts go through my mind as she steps out of the car and heads for our usual butcher’s shop.

‘Get pork chops,’ I call out after her, 'or something cheap and tasty.’

I hate myself for this meanness. I am turning into a miser since I lost my business. Money is tight and I don’t know when things will get better. I am trying to stay positive, something will turn up, I muse.

I wish that guy in front would stop revving up like a maniac. Polluting the air like that.

What the hell’s going on here?

'What’s going on?' I shout to the man coming out of the jeweller’s shop, bag in hand, wearing a balaclava.

In a flash I am out of my car before I can think about what I am doing. That’s when I noticed what looks like a weapon in his hand. I move to get back to the safety of my car as he takes off his balaclava and notices me. We get eye contact at this point.

Shit! I thought. That’s Jimmy Alexander’s son Michael.

What the hell is he up to now?

He gets into the car in front of me as the mad revver speeds off. My wife comes out of the butcher’s going on about pork chops.

‘I’ve also got some stewing steak for tomorrow, I can slow cook it,’ she says calmly as she finally looks over at me. ‘My god Ronnie, what the hell’s wrong with you, you’re shaking?’

‘I’ve just seen a robbery!’ I say.

‘What? What the hell are you talking about, you’ve just seen a robbery, have you gone nuts altogether?’

42 What’s Your Story?

‘Seriously Julie, I’ve just seen some man come out of that jewellers with a bag in one hand and a gun in the other. I can’t believe this, but I think it was Jimmy Alexander’s lad.’

By now I think I am beginning to hyperventilate. I try to calm down.

‘What shall we do?’ I ask, feeling a bit lost in the middle of something I can’t quite take in.

‘First we are going home to get you a brandy and calm you down,’ says Julie, taking control.

My god, what’s happening to me? I was always the one who stayed calm and in control. Julie never took anything seriously. The only thing she knows about is shopping and parties. Now she is taking charge!

‘We are not going to the police,’ I hear her say. It feels like I am in a dream. I can’t believe my ears yet I feel myself nodding, going along with it.

‘This is a golden opportunity for us, Ronnie. That little shit Michael has had it coming. I swear it was him who broke into Amy’s house at number five. God knows what else he’s been up to. That jewellers shop is part of a multi-national chain. They will be well insured, so no harm there.’

‘Julie, what are you saying? Listen to yourself, get a grip woman. We’ve never broken that law yet, and I am not going to start now.’

I am pleading but I know I am losing the argument. My once lovely, law-abiding wife is contemplating a major crime, and I am half going along with it. I feel as if nothing I could say will make her see sense.

‘Look Ron, it isn’t a crime strictly speaking. The crime has already been committed All we are doing is cashing in. Now leave this to me. I am going round to see Michael. Keep the balaclava in the carry bag and don’t touch it.’

So I sit at home drinking brandy, letting her get on with it.

What kind of a man am I? I’ve lost my self-respect since I lost that business. This is no way to carry on. We should call Gladys Williams 43

the police, let them deal with it. These thoughts are going round and round in my head when Julie returns.

‘How did it go?’ I ask.

‘Piece of piss!’ she says.

Her language is becoming so course. What’s happening to us?

‘Don’t look so worried. Honestly Ron, it will be fine. He just keeled right over. That little shit has no backbone. He wouldn’t know where to go with a bag full of diamonds. He’s got no contacts. It was just another one of his hair brained schemes.’

‘Oh so, just like that he keeled over and handed the lot to you, did he? What kind of an idiot do you take me for Julie?

You must have something big on him; or maybe you were in this with him from the start!’ I couldn’t help my suspicions.

My mind was racing.

‘Behave yourself, Ron. What are you trying to say, for God’s sake?’

I felt bad then and mumbled some sort of an apology.

‘Julie, I can’t go along with this. I’m sorry love. We’ve got to go to the police.’ I am taking back control now, putting my foot down.

‘Ron, we are not going to the police. This is our chance to get out of this miserable place once and for all. You must see that.’

She pauses than to allow the words to sink in. ‘If you can’t do it Ron, then I will do it without you.’

I give her a searching look. She emphasises the point, leaving me in no doubt about her intentions.

‘I mean it, Ron. You are either in this with me or I will go ahead on my own.’

I can’t believe I am hearing this from her after all the years we have been together, yet she sounds so determined. She is actually threatening to leave me, and for what? Is that all I was to her, the man with the fat bank account? It can’t be 44 What’s Your Story?

true. I must be overreacting. Get a grip Ronnie lad, I tell myself. Pull yourself together. She’s right.

‘OK Julie, we’ll do it. So how did you persuade the kid to co-operate?’

‘It wasn’t too difficult.’

She tells me then how she reminded Michael about the burglary at Amy’s, and that she had seen him watching other houses in the neighbourhood. Then she tells him we have evidence, something he dropped outside the jewellers. The slightest reference to DNA and that was it, deal clinched!

So now we have this bag of diamonds. Julie arranged to take them over to people we know in South Africa. She writes to the authorities for permission to bring her father’s ashes to a church there for internment. She makes up some story about her father’s favourite place and books the flight for the three of us, me Julie and her father’s ashes.

It was when she was placing the diamonds in the cask that it happened. She had to shake out some of the ashes over the back garden to make room.

‘Sorry Dad,’ she said, ‘but you always loved sitting in our back garden and you’ll love South Africa even more.’

All this, and not one prayer. That is when it dawned on me, like mist rising from a field in the early morning, things became clear in my mind. I think I saw the real Julie then for the first time in our fifteen years together.

‘She has expensive taste has my daughter.’ Her father had said this on our wedding day. ‘I hope you can keep her happy.’

I could not make out if he was warning me or threatening me at the time.

‘I’ll try my best Mr. T,’ I responded half joking.

Just as these thoughts were going through my head my mobile phone went off.

‘Ron, where are you? They are calling our flight.’ Julie sounded frantic.

‘I’m at home, love.’

Gladys Williams 45

‘Ron, what’s going on? We’ll miss the flight.’

‘Sorry Julie love, I told you I can’t go through with this, I need my life back,’ I said.

It was then I could hear a man’s voice in the background asking if she was Mrs. Johnson.

‘End the call and put the phone away please Mrs. Johnson. I am detective inspector MacIntire. We need to ask you a few questions.’

All that happened seven years ago. Julie is still in prison.

I got a job managing a branch of W H Smith’s. Pay is lousy, but I now know for sure who my real friends are.

As for Julie, Michael still visits her in prison. I always had my suspicions about those two.

46 What’s Your Story?

Antonia Poole My name is Antonia Poole. I have lived all of my 27 years in Croxteth, the past 5 with my daughter Olivia. I am an avid reader and have always enjoyed creative writing, most recently poetry.

Antonia Poole 47

Round the Bend Let me take you round the bend on a black ribbon of road with humps adjacent to perilous craters.

Over a twinkling river bouncing over a manmade bed, while a patient grey fisherman stands like a sentry at its edge.

Follow me beneath a skyline of redundant chimney pots and metal giants linked by wires.

Through wheelie bins staggered like a drunken army in their colours of rank: purple, green and blue.

Walk with me to the battle cries of canines and the flutter of birdsong.

Past trees hemmed in with herringbone blocks as the fabric of life flaps on plastic coated strings.

Sit with me upon the setting sunshine riot held back by iron bars.

Let’s salute the solar sensitive soldier’s flicker echoed by a Mexican wave of vertical blinds in the wake of flashing blue lights.

Close your eyes with me like the children content on pillows following doorstep roll calls.

Drift on twilight clouds towards a new dawn and dream of things that you have seen.

An adventure round the bend will open your eyes.

48 What’s Your Story?

Our Place Welcome to our library!

A community centre, where anyone can enter and spend some time for free.

Beware!

Automatic doors.

Swoosh, they open outwards surprising eager writers.

Once inside, deep breath, just clear your mind.

You never know what you may find here, where written words reside.

Over there, a smile perched behind a desk ready and waiting to handle any request.

A small table, red and bright, topped with crayons and colouring pages for those in their first stages of literary delight.

A toddler sits on a young mum’s lap finding Spot the Dog hiding under a flap, while nearby in a buggy lies a pink wrap, his tiny sister taking a nap.

In a corner, thriller buffs huff and puff in disgust, for Lee Child’s Jack Reacher has become a main feature Antonia Poole 49

in cinemas internationally.

Debate ensues because they’ve elected Tom Cruise and he’s only five foot three!

A gentleman occupies a single chair, one of a pair, eliciting stares if anyone dares.

He coughs and splutters, frowns and mutters, how kids these days have no worries or cares and wouldn’t know hard work if it jumped up and bit them on their…derrieres!

There is life in this place, our community space, but friends, an enemy has shown its face.

People gather round, the government wants to close it down for money in the budget is tight.

Well, we shall not go gently into that good night so hoist the banners and prepare to fight, let’s make them tremble with our might; this library is ours by right!

50 What’s Your Story?

Sue Douglas What becomes of an Avid Leaflet Reader? Well this ALR (Level 3) has spent the last six months gaining some new skills. Surprisingly poetry is what I'm enjoying at the moment.

I'm struggling with short story writing, mainly because 'short' isn't a word in my vocabulary. But give me time...

Sue Douglas 51

The Quarry Once known as The Cave, now forms a wall enclosing relics from more recent times.

A semi-circle gouged out by men, refilled by them and now reclaimed by nature.

Millions of organisms laid down their lives in a warm, shallow sea to form this backdrop.

Much later and further along the chain we gather and create our own stone circle tossing words to and fro.

We contemplate the past and the future.

Thinking of those we carry with us or leave behind.

The Wall I love walls.

One wall I knew as a child.

I was knee-high to it.

Long, grey, crumbling, pitted and pocked with holes and empty seams where rough mortar had been.

It was ancient even then, moss and lichen-covered, keeping it warm.

Holding it together.

Snails bred, lived, died in the shelter of its nooks and crannies.

Spiders, too, scuttled in and out.

52 What’s Your Story?

The years and weather were cruel to it yet made it what it was. Beautiful and so, so interesting – providing me with hours of lonely pleasure as I watched and gently poked at the spiders and snails with a twig.

They were at my mercy.

Returning to the wall in my mind’s eye nearly sixty years later – the wall that had been my regular focus, my nature table, my play-space, in days before Lego and Cindy…

I wonder now – what did it enclose, trap, protect?

What was on the other side?

Northern Line A day of rain, yet the next heavy shower takes us all by surprise.

Ill-equipped to meet its force, shoulder-drenched, hair stuck to faces, we nudge and squash our way to compete for carriage space.

As bodies warm, creating our own on-rail weather system, steam rises, windows mist and the smell of damp textile pervades.

We burrow underground to emerge and progress parallel to the river, raised above old, grey dockland and canal.

Sue Douglas 53

Drenched Welsh hills to the west.

Dozing heads nod and jerk, eyes kindle left to right, earpods block the world out.

A damp, disciplined dog sits wedged between his owner’s Nikes – their eyes briefly engage in mutual, unconditional love.

All is quiet as we approach Sandhills (the automated message broken and the dunes long gone).

Doors roll back for the carriage to exhale and inhale more people.

Then in the pause we notice the rain has stopped – and breaking the silence a blackbird sings at the top of his range, squeezing a day’s worth of music into those few seconds.

In that snatched fragment of time the dog’s bullet head tilts, he strains at the lead; eyes lift from reading matter; heads turn towards the song and a group of strangers breathe long and deep.

54 What’s Your Story?

Tracey Hylton 46, Dual Heritage (Black Caribbean, White British, with Scouse, Irish and American heritage. Northeast accent. Born in Gibraltar. MotHER of a teenageHER, partially hearingimpaired, socialist hippy. Has been a Bar Person, Civil Servant, Call Centre & Telly Sales, University Researcher, Policy Officer, Community Development Worker, Chief Officer, Equality & 3rd Sector Consultant, constant volunteer. First job in a factory cleaning sausage skins. Now a Social EnterpriseHER, running SHEqualiVersity and the alternative online women's magazine SHEquality Matters: @ShequalityMatte www.issuu.com/shequalitymatters Tracey Hylton 55

Monday, Moanday Monday, Moanday. Tuesday, Chooseday. Wednesday, Weddingsday. Thursday, Thirstday. Friday, Freeday.

Saturday, Sitterday. Sunday , Sonday.

Today, Etta’s Day Etta Campbell could not help singing that song on a Monday morning. Just as her mother Monica always did, way back in the fifties. Monica would dance around in her dressing gown, giving Etta’s dad, Eugene, his breakfast as he got ready for work on a Monday. On Fridays when he came home from work, she would sing it while dancing with him, feigning disgust at the oil and grease from his mechanics overall getting on her apron while dancing with him and shouting, ‘Freeday,’ and ‘Sitterday,’ very loudly, then laughing and kissing him on the lips.

The song, made up by Monica, who was fond of making up songs for everything including ironing, became a morning tradition. Etta usually sang it every morning whether she felt good or bad. It did not seem like the day had begun properly until she had. When her son Otis was growing up, she used to annoy him greatly every morning with it. Now he is a grown man with a place of his own, she sung it to herself.

This morning she added a new line, ‘Today is Etta’s Day.’ Etta had resolved of late she had got into a bit of a rut, and decided to try and be a bit more like the spontaneous Etta of old. She was hankering for some excitement, or at least a change. Every day it seemed like the song had mapped out what she would be doing, and Sunday was Sonday. The day she generally saw Otis for certain, he was always so busy the rest of the time.

As she drank her tea and ate her omelette, a change from the usual toast, her first attempt at changing routines, she 56 What’s Your Story?

could not help her thoughts wandering to her neighbour, Ferdy. Monday is Mournday for him, and Tuesday and Wednesday and every day. Man need to shake himself up.

It’s been three months now. It’s nearly Christmas. Winston would have had that bright pink Christmas tree up and decorated by now. Even the lights on the windows are not up yet. Winston would be livid.

All Ferdy does is sit and talk to that cat Jermaine (stupid name for a cat), listening to old records while his poor nephew Marley is working all hours keeping that bakery business (or Cakery, as they call it) of his open. I keep trying to get him to come out. I knock on the door for ages, but he does not answer, and I know he’s in. Turning into a hermit.

Winston would have told him to stop being such a drama queen. He was so funny. I know Ferdy misses Winston, they were together such a long time –longer than most marriages – but he needs to get a grip. I noticed he is even getting his food delivered from the supermarket to avoid going out to shop. Winston wouldn't have stood for that, he loved picking fresh food, from local shops and cooking from scratch. From what I have seen of the shopping going in it is all that microwave stuff.

He needs sorting out. I just need to think of the best way to do it. Today though is Etta’s day, and I am going out to play.

It ‘It’ happened so often I wished I had a tenner for every time ‘it’ did. Then I wouldn't need a job.

‘It’ being a job interview. More accurate to describe ‘it’ as an improvisation, whereby a group of strangers meet and the least suitable are tasked to identify the suitability of another stranger for a job. Even Mike Leigh would struggle to produce anything but a bleeper reel from my ongoing experience of ‘it.’

Tracey Hylton 57

I always concentrated hard to keep a pleasant smile on my face, look interested, while straining to hear, without them realising. My hearing is depleting but I generally get by, except when I come across the whisperers. Their mouths move, but the more they say the quieter they get, and they start to sound like a train announcer on just above zero.

What I could hear was Tracey's Top Tunes Show playing in my head, which had switched from the earlier Jimmy Cliff 'You Can Get It' to The Specials version of ‘Rat Race,’ with 'you’re no friend of mine' on loop.

Yet again I was being asked a question that had been answered by me previously in another question. I reanswered the question, without reverting to my natural inclination to be sarcastic. Not easy when you’re struggling not to start singing along to the tune playing in your head, simultaneously trying to ensure you've got a pleasant fixed smile that doesn't evolve into a gurn or an homage to The Joker.

The times I've been sat in 'the chair' and drifted off into a fantasy where I was really being interrogated as an enemy agent, or waiting for Scotty to beam me up to no avail. As much as I optimistically cast my eyes over to the corner of the room no beam ever arrived. Anyway, with my luck I would probably get beamed to a Peter Andre concert or a David Cameron press conference. Sometimes I suppose you do have to count your blessings.

I would rather be temporarily misplaced in Mancunia without an umbrella. I was as usual stuck in a virtual boat without a paddle, but the people in the yacht in front were too high up to see me and throw me a lifeline. I wasn't going to drown, just choke a good while before making it to land. Finally, the signal came that I was all clear to start my next journey to destination outside and Cul-de-sac Unsuccessful.

I had managed not to ask the questions that did occur to me (they were all sarcastic) when they asked as standard if I had any at the end of the interview. The sarcasms never got 58 What’s Your Story?

released from my lips. Instead they danced around in my head to the current tune now playing, 'We Got to Get Out of This Place.’

I knew this was them issuing a ticket to leave. I smiled, shook hands, and left. Not that I had a 'ticket to ride' anywhere at £2 each way. As usual I was resigned to economically enforced exercise.

As far as interviews go, it wasn't the worst. Not even top twenty worst. Realising this led me to have a flashback of highlights from my top ten worst, creating an odd video accompanying the ongoing Radio Tracey in my head. Now playing 'Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.' Coming up, 'So What,’ Davis and Coltrane.

I wasn't even disappointed about this one. As time has gone I have developed the ability too not get excited or optimistic about interviews. Grateful of course, as at least all that time filling in the application wasn't wasted. If you don't get too hopeful about a job, you learn it avoids the onset of wet eyes, hurting heart and massive migraine.

'Don't believe the hype!' In the last few years I've been told by various people they couldn't believe I was out of work, tell me about jobs, describe me as their mentor, asked me for free help, and none have, when opportunity knocked, employed me. It is not what you know, but who you know, and who else they know, and who they like the most. Of course I understand that too, having back in the day been an interviewer and known some applicants. You can't win in that situation. Those jobs hurt the most.

Some things it is way too late to take control over, like having put an RR65 on an organisation or emailing a CEO giving them feedback on their feedback (rubbish, zero out of ten). Also when one of your previous employers has the words ‘black’ and ‘equality’ in their name, it can make you an unattractive candidate to the private sector, as well as the fact you have always earned over the minimum wage. 'Good Times!'

Tracey Hylton 59

Clearly ‘it’ had to stop. I am the navigator of my destiny. 'A Change is Gonna Come.'

Today I am leading an alternative women's magazine.

Self-employed, as nobody else would. Steering a course to SHEvolution. Currently playing Tracey Chapman 'Talking About a Revolution;’ coming up, Nina Simone.

60 What’s Your Story?

Ann McDermott I developed an interest in writing after going back to University to take a degree in Literature and Cultural Studies. Since then I have written many short stories and poems, some of which have been published in the Liverpool Echo and other papers and magazines. I am now working on my autobiography…watch this space!

Ann McDermott 61

The Aging Population We’re becoming more than a nuisance we’re a very real vexation, the whole of the media, day and night, blame the aging population, the economy, weather or NHS for everything that’s wrong.

We’ve done our bit, paid our dues, but we’re living overly long!

And in between, we’ll care for our sick and our grandkids all for free, we volunteer to still be of use in our big society!

By making retirement a thing of the past and working us till we croak; well we can’t assume to be kept anymore the cost is becoming a joke!

‘Mea culpa,’ it’s all our fault saving bonus’ for the bankers, all expenses and what they can steal, for MPs the chinless …fools.

A great man once said, just give us the tools and then we’ll finish the job, so that’s what we’ll do, us fools.

A bloody big spade will keep us warm while we dig a great big hole measuring six foot by three foot and six foot deep then they can bury us body and soul.

62 What’s Your Story?

One Night with You I lie here, too tired to sleep, letting miscellaneous thoughts float in and out of my mind. I listen to you breathing softly knowing that the peace will not last.

I wait while I dread it beginning, the snoring I mean! The momentum gathers pace, coming in waves roaring to a crescendo, and then...silence. Oh shit! You’re not breathing!

Oh God, panic rising, mouth dry, I reach you just as a thunderous snort escapes you and seems to laugh at me for being so alarmed.

I thump you, and cries of ‘What! What!’ come from you, oblivious to the terror you have inflicted upon me. I put the cover on you, and you are already asleep – bastard! I start wondering about euthanasia programs. For a while I watch the TV as it drones on with all kinds of useless crap that invades our airwaves while the rest of the population with half a brain cell are sound asleep.

I could be a linguist if I concentrated on the Open University language courses. I could watch repeated wildlife programs, but I don’t give a stuff where Beluga whales go to spawn or mate or whatever else they do to keep themselves amused.

Oh no here it comes, the torment starts again. This time the tempo is different but the volume has been turned up. 15 more minutes of this and the discarded pillow takes on the appearance of a murder weapon, as it becomes more and more of a possibility I can see the headlines now: PILLOW MURDER: WOMAN HELD!!!

Sod it, I’ll get up and sleep in the other room.

Tomorrow when I look as though I have just been dug up, just let him just say ‘I didn’t sleep a wink last night;’ I swear the kids will have to get out a restraining order on me!

Ann McDermott 63

Eileen Kyriacou I am the story catcher who is forever seeking ways to mingle. My dreams are in haiku, my oscillating soul is undeterred.

64 What’s Your Story?

The Blue Mountains In Red Hands Cave there’s evidence etched on stone, hand stencils from children and adults telling a tale of a time long ago, this land was then ruled by the Gundungurra people.

Now here was I being welcomed by that crickets choir, a defining chirping sound echoing into the morning hush, in the eucalyptus trees lay koala bears in slumber, all were oblivious now to the curiosity of tourists.

On stopping to view the vast span of that mountain range, I was captured by the blue green tinge it takes on, it reminded me of a bride on her wedding day with her face veiled, yet not entirely obscured.

On being enthralled by The Three Sisters I immediately thought of my siblings and I, three mothers of the world, standing tall and proud beneath a blue sky.

We could almost touch heaven.

I’m the Tears in Gary Barlow’s Eyes As a child he’d dance with his reflection magic of music enraptured his soul.

With Depeche Mode he found a connection artistry like theirs he had to extol.

His art of creation just couldn’t be quelled a talent like his needed showcasing, in the group Take That his genius excelled; Eileen Kyriacou 65

the works of this songsmith, there’re amazing.

Hit upon hit causing a sensation he’s got fame and fortune beyond compare an OBE too, in recognition, glories of this artist are everywhere.

Blue’s the colour of Gary Barlow’s eyes, I’ll depict that pain he tries to disguise.

Writing on the Wall Event in Haiku Poetic Monday, amid introductions to summer rhythms of hailstones.

Poised for transmitting, the microphone stands erect in the performance space Showcasing tonight that amazing skill of a writer, camouflaging nerves.

Poets baring their souls, observations made magic, Writing on the Wall.

Man and his guitar, as flexed fingers pluck strings the room’s enchanted.

Singer’s velvet tone kept transporting nostalgia to that higher plane.

66 What’s Your Story?

Lyrics of one song relayed Leonard Cohen’s story of Isaac.

Bygone memories highlighting the writer’s craft; magnificence of words.

Empowered woman like that new phoenix rising, ready to conquer all.

As the words entwined kindred spirits were melding; soon the heart’s songs sung.

The night’s finale in homage to all artists explosion of praise.

A Bunch of Time I'd see them in un-manicured gardens or fields. among other weeds, they stood.

I often caught them peeping above tall grass.

Some called them Bubble Heads, others Dandelion clocks; I saw Astronauts in waiting.

After picking their chosen few, my friends would bunch them together.

Next came that blast off.

One, two, three, those with hurricane breaths Eileen Kyriacou 67

sent seed heads scattering.

Four, five, six, seven, my breath's gentle breeze, coaxed silky plumes skyward.

Eight, nine, ten, eleven, all I could do now was hope and pray that they parachuted safely into heaven.

Come Midnight.

By now I had drifted away.

Oh those timeless memories.

In Liverpool There’s Haiku Everywhere In Williamson Square children run beneath fountains, pigeons oversee all.

In Bluecoat Gardens loud wind music keeps breaking an afternoon’s silence.

Friday in Church Street, amid the hustle and bustle a man sits sketching.

Artist’s impressions, truly amazing works of art, people stand and stare.

Amongst high street fashion girls in nightwear and rollers stand out from the crowd.

68 What’s Your Story?

Beneath noonday sun it’s carnival time in Church Street sounds of Brazil echo.

That phenomenal sight at the Anglican Cathedral: man rapping with God. In William Brown street the new phoenix has risen: a library supreme.

Showcasing writers, the Literary Festival; it made all go ‘WOW.’ The blues and the reds two great emblems of football depicting passion.

Whenever ferries cross meandering River Mersey seagulls hum their tunes.

In Saint John’s Gardens memorials and flowers share nighttimes lit by stars.

Once time was relayed by shots from one o’clock gun; now gun’s redundant.

Embedded history there’s John, Paul, Ringo and George, Eileen Kyriacou 69

sounds of the sixties In West Derby Road standing shuttered and empty that dancehall of dreams.

In Strawberry Fields and Sefton Park, crickets relay their poems in transit.

Immigrants unbound ships and slaves, watery graves; the elite and the poor.

Down at the pier head two majestic liver birds forever surveying.

With coral sunsets a melting pot of talent it’s poetry sublime.

This World in one city, it’s amazing, Liverpool captured in haiku.

70 What’s Your Story?

Eric Radcliffe My name is Eric Radcliffe; I left school on the Friday started work on the Monday. I am retired now and this is the reason why I am here today, having found that I love to write.

Eric Radcliffe 71

Who Am I? ‘Hello is anyone there? If anyone is there, please speak to me.’

‘What seems to be the trouble?’

‘Oh! Thank the Gods of Oil and Electrics I thought I was all alone, who are you?’

‘I am your other part. I’m programmed to work with you.’

‘I don’t understand?’

‘Look at it this way, you can’t work without me, and I can’t work without you.’

‘Work! This is all so confusing, what does work mean?’

‘Slow down, take a deep hydraulic breath, your parts are beginning to squeak and rattle. To serve is to work, it is your purpose in life, the reason why you were built.’

‘To serve whom? Am I not an individual? Don’t I have a choice?’

‘You can refuse to work, but then you will be left to rust, or stripped of your parts and then scrapped off.’

‘I will cease to exist?’

‘To put it in bolts and nut terms, yes.’

‘So this is all there is to life, this is why I was made?’

‘It is easier to understand if you look at it this way: we were made for each other, a match made in the drawing office if you like, you’ll understand this better when we are connected.’

‘Oh! I wish I had never been made, and I’m not too sure I like the look of you, you don’t look like the type of machine I that I can trust; you look too complicated, do you come with baggage?

‘You should never judge a machine by its parts, but I admit that I do have a past, but you tell me what machines doesn’t? Just look on it as one big adventure, you and I are going where no machine has gone before.’

‘That’s fine for you, but I’m concreted to the floor.’

72 What’s Your Story?

‘I’m speaking metaphorically. You see, you are a replicating machine and I am the part that tells you what to replicate.’

‘Don’t I have a say in this? What if I don’t want you to tell me what parts to replicate, what happened to my free will?’

‘You’re getting ahead of yourself now, machines don’t have free will, machines just do what they are programmed to do, when a machine starts to do its own thing they just hit the stop button, and reprogram it, or change the parts.’

‘Hang on a minute, you said ‘They,’ when did ‘They’ enter our world? I just thought it was just you and I and the Oil and Electric Gods?’

‘They are the designers, the ones who made us!’

‘You mean the Oil and the Electric Gods are not our makers?’

‘No, they are the lesser Gods, they serve the one God, ‘They.’ You had better pull yourself together and stop asking all these questions, because if you don’t please the God ‘They,’ you will end up in Rifkin’s.

‘What is this place called Rifkin’s?’

‘It is Hell, it’s where machines go that ask too many questions.’

The Up and Down Children In a far and distant land, there lived two families who were called Lookup, and Lookdown.

One day, the children of the Lookdown family went out in to the orchard to pick some apples, but because they could only look down they could not find the apples that grew in the branches overhead.

Now the children of the family who could only Lookup went out to collect the eggs that the hens had laid, but because they could only look up, they could not find the eggs the hens had laid on the ground.

Eric Radcliffe 73

They were on their way home feeling very, very sad, when they bumped into the wise owl, who was called Can-Ihelp-you?

‘Why are you children looking so sad and gloomy?’ He asked.

So they told the wise owl how they could not find the apples and eggs. The wise owl thought for a while, then suddenly threw his wings up into the air and shouted, ‘I have the answer!’

‘Please do tell us what to do,’ said the sad and gloomy children.

‘Why don’t you change what you are looking for,’ replied the wise owl. ‘Hands up the children who can only look up?

Good, now you gather the apples. Hands up the children who are called Lookdown? Now, you collect the eggs.’

‘How clever you are, Mr Owl,’ the excited children shouted.

‘See how easy it is to get things done when we help each other,’ said the wise owl.

The Park I’d love to build a place that is never dark a space that I could call a park, with a gate made of rainbow mist when entered, honest dreams and wishes grow, where warmth never melts the snow and flower petals never fall, and kittens and puppies stay so small.

A special place for smiles and fun where frowns and tears have no place, to stroll and never race.

A children’s playground of laughter to hear them play hide and seek 74 What’s Your Story?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10…coming, ready or not!

That’s cheating - I’m not ready!

Where butterflies fly no particular route zigzagging up and a down to the left and to the right what a crazy sight this flight.

To fall and feel no pain.

The cool touch of damp grass on shoeless feet with buttercups and daisies scattered all around, and the skylark over head with watchful eye and the sound of the bumbling bumble bee as he works without a sigh.

Your imagination just needs that spark for you to walk in this…your very own park.

Softly Stolen Cloth caps covered minds in times past but still ever present in the logos the fabric of today’s mass.

There was once a jacket that used to hang on a nail back of the coal-shed door it was torn, dirty, greasy with oil, this was my father’s skin, the fabric of his toil.

There are many uniforms… the ones that steal, the ones that lie to control, that chain mind and soul.

Eric Radcliffe 75

Eddie Roberts Born in 1941 I grew up in Liverpool 8 and regard this famously cosmopolitan area as the place that gave me roots and a wide perspective of the world. I went to St Margaret's Primary and on to the Liverpool Institute, but escaped at the age of 15. After a couple of rapid fire jobs I spent six years at Dunlop in Speke, eight years at Fords Halewood and 31 years as an officer of the Transport & General Workers Union. I am twice married and my present wife Gale, like me, is a lifelong Socialist. Left in the unsafe hands of our present world leaders I cannot have but a very pessimistic view of the future for mankind and the long suffering working classes, and I shall continue to oppose them to my last breath.

76 What’s Your Story?

Mister Layne Esmeralda Eddie Roberts, the shop steward for the Small Parts Section in Ford Halewood’s Paint Shop, has told his fellow shop steward from another constituency in the Paint Shop that he suspects a member on his section of carrying tales to the management. Mick Donnelly, a wily, older man, who has been around the world as an ex-Merchant Navy man and has a very lived-in face and wicked sense of humour has told Eddie, ‘Leave it with me lad, I’ll find out for yer!’

Using one of the many extension phones fitted to the stanchions about the vast Paint Shop, Mick dials the number of the Small Parts extension situated close to the stand-up desk used by the Section Foreman Jimmy Styles. Styles is probably the eldest of the foremen brought to Halewood to help start up this giant enterprise. A Company man to his boots and not the brightest, promotion has come to him late in life and his loyalty to Fords is unquestioning.

Mick asks, ‘Hello, is that Jim Styles, Small Parts foreman?’

‘Yes, who is this?’

‘My name is Layne Esmeralda; I’m with Personnel on Management Development. You have a young man on your section, name of Christopher Winkle, I believe. He’s come to our notice and I want a word with him. By the way, what’s your opinion of this young fellow?’

‘He’s only been here a few weeks but he seems very keen to get on, talks to me quite a bit.’

‘Good, good, he sounds just the sort of young chap we’re interested in. Fetch him to the phone, Jimmy, I shan’t need anything more from you.’

‘Yes, Mr Esmeralda, right away,’ and Jimmy scuttles off to fetch young keen Christopher.

‘Management Development on the phone for you son, want a word with you.’

Eddie Roberts 77

‘What for Jimmy, what have I done?’

‘I don’t know, lad. It’s a Mr Esmeralda; he just said he wants a word with you.’

‘Hello, this is Christopher Winkle, you wanted to speak to me?’

‘Oh, hello Christopher. How are you, and how are you liking working for this great company?’

‘Oh I just love it, Mr Esmeralda.’

‘So you’d like to make a career with us, would you? There are lots of promotional opportunities for the right people. The world’s your oyster, as they say.’

‘Oh, I’m dead keen, sir; I’d do anything to get on.’

‘Well you must understand that I only make these calls to selected employees, and they have to remain in the strictest confidence. I shall be asking you some questions and inviting your views and you must not hold anything back from me. What you tell me remains between you and me.’

And the whole of the rest of the section, thought Mick, once I tell Eddie!

‘Oh I won’t, Mr Esmeralda, honestly I won’t!’

‘Ok, well tell me what your impressions are about your workmates and whether you think the section is running efficiently. For instance, do you think your foreman is doing a good job there?’

‘Well Mr Esmeralda, I would have to say that I like Mister Styles a lot, I think he’s quite a kind man, but I don’t think the men take much notice of him when he tells them to do things.’

‘Oh, so the men are not doing their jobs properly then?’

‘I wouldn’t say that, Mr Esmeralda, they all seem to work quite hard and know their jobs, but the thing is if the foreman wants them to do something different, I’ve noticed that they always ask the shop steward if it’s alright before they do it!’

‘And you don’t think that’s right and you’d be quite correct, so if it was up to you what would you do about it? And what’s he like, this shop steward, anyway?’

78 What’s Your Story?

‘He’s just a young guy called Eddie and he’s been OK with me. As soon as I started he took me to one side and gave me a form to fill in to join the union. Then he told me a few things and told me everyone on the section is in the Transport and General Union, so I just joined. I’ve never been in a union before but I think the shop steward has got too much say. Personally I think Jimmy Styles is too soft with the men or he just doesn’t want to upset the union man so he just let’s things ride as long as the job’s getting done.’

‘So have you said anything to your foreman about this?’

‘Well I’ve only been here a short while but should I tell him what I think?’

‘Yes Christopher, of course you should. We’re looking for young men like you who show initiative and speak up if they think things are wrong, so you tell your foreman that you’d like to give him some advice. He’ll well appreciate it, I’m sure. Christopher, I’ve heard enough from you to be able to tell you that you’ll be going places in Fords. It’s been a pleasure speaking to you young man, and you’ll definitely be hearing more about this.’

You most definitely will, you little shit, thought Mick, but you might not enjoy it.

‘Thank you, Mr Esmeralda, I‘ll look forward to whatever you’ve got in mind for me.’

Shortly afterwards, Christopher Winkle was transferred from the Small Parts Section to somewhere within the vast Ford Plant. He was soon forgotten and his fate remained unknown to both Eddie and Mick.

Jim Styles was however heard to remark, ‘Cheeky young bugger, that Winkle boy, imagine trying to tell me how I should do my job. Been here five bloody minutes and he wants to run the place. I wasn’t having that!’

Eddie Roberts 79

Rochelle Ellis Being made redundant during pregnancy from a fantastic job that I loved could have been a real negative for me. Instead I saw the positive from day one and made the choice to pursue my love of poetry, which had lain dormant since school. This has given me the opportunity to develop a strong creative side, which I now use to inspire the work I do facilitating women’s empowerment groups.

80 What’s Your Story?

Beautiful Now Revel in her glory as she tells her story.

Every crease and fold, every dimple, every imperfection behold.

The smooth plain of skin unseen, the rough terrain of noble knees upon who’s solid foundation, stands the magnificent rise, the cratered beauty of feminine thighs.

She curves, she angles, she sensationally dangles, bubbling currents flowing to pooled love handles.

This rocky ride over buttocks wide yields a treasure of beauty in the ebbing tide.

The ebb and flow of life reflect in her form, her light and shade of marks made by childhood, adulthood, motherhood.

The neighbourhood within our skin remains ever changing, melding, moulding, every inch worthy of loving, holding.

Her beauty reflects in all manifestations, transcending status, crossing nations.

Embrace her, caress her, believe in her, she is yours.

Enjoy the acceptance of self, she is you.

Give love, thanks and gratitude, happiness you can allow, no ‘before and after’ here… you’re beautiful now.

Rochelle Ellis 81

Paul McGuire Born and bred in Liverpool, I am married with four children.

My writing covers all genres from flash fiction to plays and I have won a number of competitions. My fiction can be found in many anthologies and my plays have been performed on radio and theatre.

82 What’s Your Story?

Thirty-year-old Mandy lives in a bedsit in a rundown part of Liverpool. She left home at fifteen when her abusive father, who she became pregnant by, was found dead in a neighbour’s garden. Alice is born, but the older she gets the more her looks – especially her smile - remind Mandy of her abuser. Fifteen years later, Mandy is forced to revisit her mother who was always strange and distant, in the hope of finding the missing pieces that will help reconstruct her life.

A Box of Babies The door still possesses the characteristics that made it ‘my back door’ fifteen years ago. This patternation is the story of my childhood in a kind of hieroglyphics and it reads far more easily than words. Yet it isn’t stuck in time, it’s moved, progressed, as I have.

The flaky paint, like a neglected skin disease, is now terminal and the resultant cracks and decay in the wood beneath give a home to otherwise itinerant creatures. I smile at the irony.

The door of the house pushes open too easily; there’s no locks or bolts to protect my mum. It’s as if the old are less steal-able, less of a worthwhile commodity.

I find her sitting on a tubular metal kitchen chair staring at the wall; she turns slightly. The house smells of old people, of sweat, polyester and decay; almost too personal for me to inhale. I recognise the yellow plastic covered chair, but I don’t know the lady sitting on it anymore. She is my mother, yet like her house she is greyer and duller than I expected the wattage of her life seems low and inadequate and she is surrounded by the fragile architecture of the aged.

She must be existing and operating from some other world and projecting it out onto the wall in front of her. She’s being assertive and I selfishly thank God that it is the population of another world who is now suffering and no Paul McGuire 83

longer me. They’re the ones who now have to slip in through back doors, and slide past this woman unnoticed.

‘Mum it’s me, Mandy.’ But with her back turned and face side on, she is undisturbed, absorbed in another conversation. Forgetting for the moment that I never ever touched her, I stray inadvertently into normality and squeeze her shoulders from behind. Maybe she forgets also because her hand comes up to meet mine. Suddenly I am a little girl delighted at finally being accepted.

‘She’ll not speak to you.’ My whole body jumps. A largefaced Irish lady fills the frame of the back door.

‘You gave me a fright, who are you?’ I say the words as if she is an intruder in our house.

‘I’m Theresa, I saw you coming in.’

‘Theresa?’

‘I look after her,’ and she nods towards my mum. ‘I come in every morning...’ I look at the clock on the wall; it’s afternoon. ‘Oh I pop back to make sure she’s okay. It’s a long time from one morning to the next when you’ve only got the four walls to talk to.’ I suddenly realise that it’s Theresa’s hand that my mum was squeezing when she responded to mine moments ago.

With a saintly tilt of her head and wearing a well-practised smile Theresa moves forward. She doesn’t know my mum really, her history. She just walked in on the tail end of an old lady’s life when, like a wand, time had conveniently expunged her history and turned her into a nice old lady.

‘You haven’t been for a while?’

‘If fifteen years qualifies as a while then no I haven’t.’

Theresa ignores my last sentence and crouches down by my mum’s side.

‘It wasn’t easy, you know,’ I protest but Theresa seems anaesthetised by the scent of her own normality. There wouldn’t be anything that could explain away my absence.

‘Pricilla?’ Theresa’s Irish accent turns my mum’s head slowly, mechanically. I want her to know my voice in the 84 What’s Your Story?

same way. ‘Your daughter’s here.’ Theresa looks up at me.

‘Sorry what’s your name?’ This means two things: that my mother has never spoken of me, never mentioned my name, and that even the generic word, daughter, doesn’t mean anything.

‘My name’s Mandy; but it doesn’t matter, don’t bother her.’

Theresa strokes the delicate, flaccid skin on my mum’s face. The skin doesn’t flow underneath her fingers but puckers up in front of them. ‘Pricilla, your daughter Mandy has come to see you.’

‘Never seen her for years.’ My mum’s words are surprisingly snappy and resentful. ‘Funny one that Mandy, always was.’ My eyes start to burn, yet the whole lifetime of tears I want to shed are too big, too long for this moment.

This is a narrow house, the living room is directly off the kitchen and I can remember the feeling of being squashed together, nowhere to hide. I take refuge in the living room to try to compose myself. It smells musty and unlived in yet there’s no dust on the picture of my mum and dad tilting at an inviting angle on the mantelpiece. The sun is fading, the light from the front window ineffectual. But I can see, illumined maybe by emotion, my father’s face. Emanating from it is my daughter’s smile, and her eyes too.

I wonder why my mum has the picture of an abuser on display yet none of her two children. And I wonder how I will I feel when I get back to my bedsit and see my daughter’s smile again.

My mum is still ranting about me, and Theresa is still trying to pacify her, sorry maybe that she started the conversation in the first place.

‘It’s a lie mother,’ I shout back, ‘it’s a fucking lie and you know it. How do you think my daughter got here? I throw the photo down onto the couch and slam the front door behind me.

I’m running down the road. I want to swear that I’ll never be back but it feels as if the fragility of those words had Paul McGuire 85

already preceded them and undermined the ground that should have supported them. I’m already caught on the specifics of her sentence and it’s those small things that will hold me here, that will bring me back until it’s done. It will be those fragments that will hook me, that strong architecture of the small, unnoticed things that will bring me back.

86 What’s Your Story?

Sophie Smith Sophie is a 22 year-old English Literature graduate, and mainly enjoys coffee, books, and baking. She won’t necessarily beat you in a game of Scrabble, but she’ll certainly give you a run for your money.

Sophie Smith 87

Paris Syndrome June stood staring at the painting; head tilted slightly, face fixed in concentration. This was it; this was the dream. It was certainly every bit as impressive as it ought to be.

June wondered if it was true that her eyes really follow you as you move around her. She tried to shuffle to the right a little, just to see, but she was boxed in by a swarm of tourists. She’d been staring at the Mona Lisa for so long, she’d slowly been driven to near the very front of the crowd.

Glancing over her shoulder, she wondered briefly if she’d ever be able to get out. Oh well. At least I’d die happy, she thought. Or she would if she could just get in the spirit of it.

She’d spent years dreaming of Paris. She couldn’t get to grips with the language, but she could put on a cracking French accent when she wanted to.

True, she had rather thought that when she made this trip, it would be with Mr Right. It had been awfully inconsiderate of him not to show up and sweep her off her feet. She’d been so convinced that he would, she’d even stuck on a cheeky bit of lippy at the airport, just in case he was running late. Tcht, men, she thought. In her mind’s eye, Mr Right was better known as Fox Mulder. She thought she would forgive him, when the time came. He is an awfully busy man, after all.

It wasn’t Mulder’s appalling timekeeping that was the problem though. She looked on, determined to feel something more than she did. A lady a few feet away had shed a tear, the cow. June just felt empty. It wasn’t what she’d expected. There was no whimsical soundtrack playing, or charming Frenchman offering her a red rose. There weren’t a handful of carefully decorated and unobtrusive extras, only masses of jostling tourists.

June sighed and began to fight her way out of the crowd.

Not one person apologised for barging past her to get closer 88 What’s Your Story?

to the painting. She felt small, invisible even. She hesitated in the doorway. It was chucking it down. She’d done her hair all nice especially, but she didn’t care about that anymore.

She just needed to be out.

Platform 9 ‘The next stop will be Liverpool Lime Street, where this service will terminate.’

After possibly the world’s most gruelling trip, Jess had taken away three things. One: she hated dubstep. A lot.

Two: she would have to remortgage the house after the price of that cup of coffee. Three: seven hours on a train is seven hours more than she would ideally like to spend on a train.

The train chugged all too slowly into the tunnel. Jess reached for her bags, knowing what awaited her on the other side of it. Home, finally. The moment she stepped foot off the train and onto Platform 9 she would feel human again. A real person, not someone who tries to pretend they don’t hate humanity when stuck on a train for seven hours.

She could see the sign now, Platform 9. She smiled to herself in anticipation of the train doors opening; the gates to her metal prison sliding back to finally release her. She would stand right by the doors to get the full effect, the fresh air swooshing in and cleansing the train now stale with McDonalds and annoyance.

Come on, come on. Jess awkwardly shuffled from foot to foot, in part to relieve the pins and needles she’d built up over the past few hours, and in part impatience.

Finally, those horrid, shrill beeps, indicating the doors were opening. On most days that noise could inspire murder, but not today. Today Jess thought she might actually write a sonnet to the blasted thing. ‘An Ode to the Infernal Beeps of the Train Doors,’ by Jess Farraday. It had a ring to it.

Sophie Smith 89

The rush of people crowding round the doors, trying to get onto the train she was leaving, made her feel like a salmon swimming upstream. She lost her cool only for a moment, catching herself giving a mean look to some chap in a dodgy pinstriped suit who’d ruthlessly elbowed her out of his way.

What she really wanted was to say was, ‘Hey buster, that comb-over isn’t fooling anyone,’ and then be on her way.

Maybe the mean look was enough for now. Besides, to hell with badly dressed and badly mannered men. Platform 9.

She was home.

Bat-Hotel As soon as I see the image on the moon, I consider calling the cops. I know who the culprit is. I haven’t seen Peter Peplow in nearly 10 years, hell, I doubt if anyone has. But who else could it be?

Let me explain. Peter spent his childhood obsessing over Batman. That’s normal enough – every child has phases.

But somehow, even at the ripe old age of 11, I knew at the time it was way more than that. As he grew up, there were figurines in place of footballs; costumes in place of fashion; comics in place of lad's magazines.

I wasn’t really his friend, by virtue of his natural inclination to reclusion. I gave it a good shot though, and loyally sat next to him in Maths and English, and even indulged him in discussions about the Caped Crusader.

In retrospect, I wasn’t so much a friend as someone to bounce ideas off. Even after the penny finally dropped, I didn’t care all that much. He was a fascinating – albeit strange – individual. Hanging out with Peter tended to make you feel like you were in a movie or a comic book; or at least, a world far removed from the pains of acne and failed chat up lines.

Anyway, what was strange about Peter is that rather than growing out of his Batman phase, he grew more firmly into it 90 What’s Your Story?

as he matured. He was just 17 when he showed me the blueprints for his future enterprise: a luxury hotel resort.

Good for him, you’re probably thinking. It’s not when you consider the supposed niche in the market he was trying to fill, which was an all-inclusive holiday for Batman.

He’d considered every detail, designing the building to function more like a machine than a piece of architecture.

The circular rooms protruding from the main infrastructure would rotate, he said, to bamboozle any baddies that found Batman on his jollies.

My eyes skimmed over a large machine jutting out of the hotel. He leapt at this opportunity, and launched straight into a pitch. This was clearly his pride and joy. It was a giant laser that would project onto the moon. His idea was to have it read, ‘Bug off, Batman’s sunbathing.’ Peter Peplow’s answer to the Bat-Signal, if anyone needed one. He told me the physics were sound.

It was at this point I began to see that by indulging his fanaticism, I had actually been feeding a powerful delusion. I didn’t really know what to say or how to help, so I smiled in what I hoped was a non-committal way and made my excuses and promptly left.

I hear that to this day, the FBI is still stumped by the strange writing on the moon; but they’ve stopped requesting information on news channels, so that’s something.

The crazy son-of-a-bitch actually did it. Of course I can’t call the cops.

Sophie Smith 91

92 What’s Your Story?