The Written Word Group

A SHOT IN THE DARK A very loud bang rang out, sounding for all the world like a gunshot, echoing through the plane and  intensifying the fear felt by passengers still recovering from a very bumpy take off.  It was a night flight and the lights had just been dimmed. “Madre Mia!!  Que pasa,?” “My god, what was that!” The stewardess passing through the plane with a trolley of sustenance for a plane full of mostly over-weight, certainly well fed passengers, tried to reassure everyone. “No os preoccupies!  Please don’t worry”. Just as she spoke and moved down the aisle, a further loud bang reverberated through the cabin. This time very real panic could be felt, with people starting to stand up, and the call sign  at a seat somewhere near the front flashing alarmingly. The young stewardess hindered by the trolley in front of her, did her best to calm the nearest passengers, whilst trying to catch the attention of her colleague in the front of the plane. “Please stay i...

  London was still recovering from the Great War. And the threat of a Bolshevik influenced takeover was still very much in the air. The War Office was located on Horse Guards Avenue. It had over a thousand rooms covering its seven floors. Filled with self-important civil service wonks. After finding the correct office, Jan was ushered into a mid-level wonk. He was given his written orders to embark for Russia. There was a naval warship HMS Cochrane readying for his trip to Archangel. He could read his orders on route to Russia. Then he was dismissed. The orders turned out to be pretty simple. Get a handle on the situation and report back what he saw, direct to Churchill. He was to meet up with Charlie Ames, who would show him the ropes. ## The shot snapped in through the broken window, and ricocheted around the top of the schoolhouse floor that Jan and Ames crouched in. “Fuck,” said Ames, “we have a clever Bolo bastard out there. Can you place him?” School books littered the floor,...

In November we went to Italy.  I had been twice before but, incredibly, nearly sixty years ago!  How could that be and how was I able to remember it so well when these days I forget why I’m standing in the middle of the sitting room! Because we also wanted to see the ruins of Pompeii, we flew first to Naples from Alicante.  Alicante has expanded and its now possible to fly to virtually anywhere in Europe,  whereas previously it would have meant flying first to Gatwick. The plan was to arrive in Naples and then take a 15 minute bus ride to Pompeii, where our Airbnb was very close to the Roman Ruins ;  we would stay there for two nights then return to Naples for the train to Rome.  I have to confess to a degree of nervousness at the thought of a bus trip.  My husband thinks he’s still capable of backpacking round Europe like our grandchildren. However in the event we took a taxi after being assured that Italian taxi drivers have a maximum fee they are al...

Mark loved this stretch of road, the fast curves and long straight section, then more fast curves up to the roundabout.   He got up early just to drive this way.   He’d usually take the motorway which cut about half an hour off his journey, but he tried to drive this road at least once a month.   He turned off the main road and took the left hand bend which began the series of fast curves, the only thing he had to beware of was the possibility of a police speed trap.   They usually parked up just after the old airfield on an old road into the woods.   He also had to be careful in the autumn because of the wet leaves on the road.   He was surprised that there hadn’t been more accidents on that road because no one stuck to the speed limit. He put his left hand on his seat belt and pulled it tighter as he put his foot down and saw the speedometer needle moving round from forty to fifty, sixty, seventy.   He took the first of the right handers at sixty...

I was a delivery driver for the Ministry of Defence, I would deliver spare parts all around the country; whether they be parts for aircraft, tanks, or battleships; we would deliver them. So you see we knew the countries roads quite well. I did a lot of deliveries to the Air Force stations in Lincolnshire so was used to driving up and down the A1 and A47 to Lincoln. First time I saw her, it was dusk and I was on the A1, just before the junction with the A47 Newark road; I just caught sight of her in the headlights. She was standing at the side of the road wearing the uniform of the Women’s Royal Air Force, carrying a small holdall with her arm out and thumb up. Well I’d always give someone in uniform a lift, the job they do protecting us from harm, and what they’d done during the war. I pulled into the side of the road and asked her where she wanted to be. Coningsby, she told me; well I was going to RAF Scampton, but I could take her to Lincoln which would shorten her walk somewha...

  As some readers may be aware, I’m a member of The Written Word Group of Almanzora and each month we are given a word or phrase to  write a short piece about, the only rule being no more than 500 words.  This month the word is Thankless.   That’s a difficult theme.  I had to think very hard to find something in my life that might be thankless.  This is it. It  is a confession,a baring of the soul, a self-flagellation if you want; certainly a reckoning for being so arrogant to imagine I could make an easy transition from short pieces of one or two thousand words to a novel of some seventy or more.   What was I thinking? I started off with little more than hope and a misplaced belief that if i wanted to do it, I could and I would.  I had no plan, no model, no sense of chronology,hugely important when writing a novel; I had only the characters and the setting.   And to date, it has pretty much taken over my life.  There are times when...