The Written Word Group

  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 an 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...

Naomi reached out for her daughter's soft, silky tiny hands, and stroked them gently while she was feeding her. It's been a week since Albana arrived in this world and when Noami first held baby Albana in her arms, her feeling of love for this bundle was instant and innate.  Naomi had been suffering from excruciating cramps in her stomach for the last two days. She thought paracetamol would help but the pain and symptoms persisted and continued feeling feverish, cold and couldn't contain her body from shaking.  After her husband, Roberto, returned from meeting Zulema for an update on their asylum applications, he saw Noami's face, a greyish sweaty colour. “Are you feeling ok? Honey, you really look pale. You’ve been feeling like this since Thursday and now it's Saturday. I think we should call the ambulance.” “You're right, I don't feel ….. ” and before Naomi could finish the sentence, she fainted.  He knew his wife needed medical attention...

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...

A Very English Summer  It’s October now and the suffocating heat of the summer months is almost forgotten, but those months did happen!   Every year my husband and I do our best to escape them , and this year we returned to friends and family in England - in Kent to be exact. As always when we drive over, we try to make the journey part of our holiday.  We used to drive the whole way, up past Madrid to the French border and on through Bordeaux or at times, the Pyrenees, all the way to Calais, but now, older and wiser, we take Brittany Ferries from Bilbao to Portsmouth.  It’s still some  900 kilometres to Bilbao so we planned our route to include three hotels including one in Bilbao for an easy drive to the port on sailing day.  I had always wanted to see Cuenca with the famous hanging houses but because it’s quite a detour from the autovia , we’ve never done it.  This time we did, and how pleased was I!  Our hotel was only a couple of miles from t...

  A Capital Day Out Everyone loves an outing, an excursion, a brief escape from the humdrum routine of everyday life.  For me, the  ultimate day out is a city day, and in particular, a London day.  I live my life deep in the Spanish countryside now, and I love it, I really appreciate the peace and the tranquility.  After 30 years of working in the centre of London, this campo life is nothing short of magical.   However, any opportunity I get to spend a few days meandering through city streets, re-discovering favourite shops, restaurants, theatres, I jump at it.  And Spain is truly blessed with its choice of cities. Almeria, Malaga, Granada, Saville, all beautiful cities steeped in history and we’ve barely left the province yet.  Now this is not the season nor the weather  to wax lyrical about perusing through Spanish city streets, that’s best done in the kinder months of October or November, but we are coming up to the time of year when my hu...