Here’s a random selection of travelling tales, a transformation from community artist to long lost underground writer. Will the blood transfusion have the desired effect? Dear reader, you decide. (These are all PDF downloads.)
Child-friendly scribblings
The Tiger Kite
She lay in her bed, not sleeping, listening to the night. Temple music drifted through the shutters, the rattling of rickshaw horns, a babble of distant incoherent voices. On the wall of her room tehre was a painting of a tiger, in simple outline striding powerfully forward, teeth bared. But there are no tigers anymore, she thought, not in this place. They have long gone.
A family trip to India and a kite festival. Read more…
This was written for Simran, an avid reader. And here’s something she wrote when she was 9, about her first visit to India, which partly provided the inspiration for me to put pen to paper. Read more… And here’s a short one her sister Kiren sent to me, about a magical elf who may live near Pontefract. Read more… Finally, here’s one from Umman Gill, intended as a bit of a cliffhanger. Read more…
Dad, Ghosthunter
I was psychic once about my gerbil. My Mom was saying ‘I think Snowy is…’ and, you know, I didn’t even let her finish the end of the sentence but I jumped in and said ‘…Dead!’ And it was true. It turned out Snowy was. Totally deceased. I don’t know how I knew it – I just did.
A father who’s obsessed with the supernatural and a daughter who tries to ignore it. In search of ghosts and hauntings, an increasingly popular leisure pursuit in the UK. A story for my daughter Katy, after a camping holiday. . Read more…
A Great Adventure
Rexio was a small plump lazy mouse who liked to spend a considerable amount of his time dozing beneath the old polished floorboards of a top floor tenement apartment in New York City, comfortably snuggled up in a bed of old newspapers.
A small tale of a tiny mouse in the big city. Read more…
In the Forest of Dreams
I dreamed a dream and in the dream I came upon a tree which spoke to me. It said, in a whisper: “There is an ancient forest far away in the east of Poland – near a little town called Supraśl – and this is the Forest of All Dreams.
Written after a storytelling workshop in a primary school led by Zosia Mioduszewska, Gosia Gasiorowska and Rich Franks. Read more…
Wednesbury Christmas Tale
‘I don’t believe in Santa anymore.’ Each time a child says this it may be that the shine on his large boots becomes a little more tarnished, his cheeks a little less ruddy, his girth may shrink by another pound or two, wisps of hair come loose from his beard and fall like pine needles to the floor. Each time a child doubts, a spring comes unsprung on the toy assembly line and it shudders and slows, and somewhere in the arctic wilds a snow wolf lifts its head to the baleful moon and moans like the wind. Read more…
The Mysterious Case of David Bennett
An English boy, David Bennett, aged 11, apparently ‘disappeared’ on Wednesday August 27th, 1997. He later then ‘reappeared’, apparently none the worse for wear. However, subsequent events and behaviours have led some to speculate that this David was not the same one as before. There was something different about him. Internet sites and conspiracy theorists in the UK have suggested that he was replaced with a convincing lookalike, to all intents the same person but, in reality (the concept of which is, I believe, always elastic) actually not the same David as before.
In the diary of a disappearance, all is not what it seems, written as Harry Trow’s birthday present. Read more…
Otherwise short stories
A Story with a Sea Captain, his Wife, and a Precious Cargo
In Hania, Crete, I had some workshops with young people investigating the hidden history of their town. The material for this story was inspired by one oral history interview and was originally written in a series of text messages. Combined with images from the workshop I used used as a example of how to construct a story. Hey presto! Read more…
And now the tale that has to be told as she would want it told…
I was in a very bad mood. It was New Years Eve. This story emerged. I was thinking about a ruined castle in the south of Wales, where we used to camp, and local legends. The story emerged when the sun was low and the cold began to bite. It’s an angry fairie story. Read more…
The Golden Fish
Michael tells me now that he never did hear the tale of the Golden Fish. It’s hard to believe he did not ever hear tell of a fish that that talked with as great a command of language of any fish that ever lived.
A bit of the blarney and blather from back home in Ireland.
Read more…
A Spell of Bad Weather
By all accounts, the day promised nothing good. According to the weathermen, a cold front was advancing rapidly from the Russian steppes. Astrologers said the stars were misaligned. City planners knew that the metropolis would come to a standstill today. They furrowed their brows, shrugged their shoulders, drank strong coffee, stared at their computer screens and did nothing. Read more…
A Birthday Gift
She received the letter on the morning of her 25th birthday. It arrived in a plain cream coloured envelope, with a Polish stamp of indeterminate age and no evidence of a postmark. The letter was not handwritten. It outlined a set of tasks, which she was instructed to complete before the night of her 26th birthday.
Read more…
The Nights Draw In (Noc Nadchodzi)
Suwałki, December 11th –––– Dear Geoffrey, Again I write with news of strange activities and idiosyncrasies encountered unwittingly along the treacherous roads that we must sometimes tread.
From the fringes of Central Europe, a rather disturbing set of letters.
Read more…
Sweet Dreams
I climb from the bed and wander through the large apartment. Though I do not live here, it all seems familiar. I move quickly through the darkness, drawing back heavy curtains to reveal a tall window. The moon is up and I look out at an inner courtyard. In the night air strange plants are blooming, pulpous growths drained of colour.
An unexpected encounter in Normandy. Read more…
Born in the Bleak Country
Waiting for an long overdue bus, the two of them kept talking, as if to keep warm. Behind them the panorama of the Rowley hills looked marvellously smoky in the twilight but they failed to admire its rugged winter beauty. They were concerned with other matters.
A companion piece to the Wonders of West Bromwich and Warley, another view of the area. Found conversations in bars and at bus stops and queues and in living rooms. Thirty nine fragments of text only. Read more…
The Ruin of Europe
As three people wait to cross a long-forgotten border, their stories briefly intermingle. Read more…
Non- fiction
We are not Polish
Let me start with a confession: my Father was not Polish. All the time people would ask, ‘Is your Father Polish?’ To confuse them, I would reply, ‘No, my Mother is Irish.’
My Irish childhood in the West Midlands was full of the Poles of the diaspora. This essay explains the unlikely connections. Read more…
In Venice
I first saw the Venetian lagoon from afar, en route from Zagreb to Pisa via Mestre, hitching a ride on a truck from Edirne in Turkey to Peterborough in England. My favourite time in Venice is as midnight approaches. Come with me, let’s take a night walk. Read more…
