This is another police tale, set in and around Bearsden.
Some of the elements of this yarn are close to home.
When he was in his final year at High School, our son accepted a lift from a boy in his class.
A policeman appeared at our door to tell my wife the boys had been involved in an accident.
Every parent’s worst nightmare.
Fortunately, although the car was a write-off, both youngsters were merely shaken, not broken.
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This is a story about how the police hierarchy deal with bent coppers while avoiding unsavoury publicity.
It involves some graphic material and you may wish to avoid it for this reason.
If you decided to risk it, I hope you might agree that it has a ring of truth about it.
Or perhaps I am watching different news broadcasts from you?
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This is an account of our trip to Tenerife in January 2016.
It is an almost factual first person tale, sprinkled with Muse dust.
Come away with us to the sun. . .
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This is a tale which has its origins in my childhood.
There is a little vernacular language, used only in context.
It arose from a challenge which I set for the Writers’ Circus.
I am pleased to advise that most people of a certain age (mine!) seem to enjoy it.
Nostalgia lives on in our hearts and minds.
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This tale is 98% true.
We boarded a bus heading for Glasgow. . .
This piece contains ‘vernacular’ language, as was used by some of our fellow travelers.
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This short tale arose from our Christmas challenge at Writers’ Circus:
Use no more than 500 words, use only 5 adjectives and only 2 adverbs.
For a writer of verbose prose, this was a challenge indeed.
When read by Margaret, my First Reader, my initial versions were scattered with adjectives to which I was completely word blind.
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This is a tale written for a Writers’ Circus challenge - “Who was she?”
My first attempt was full of holes, and my ‘she’ would have certainly been nabbed.
With this version, perhaps she still has a chance of evasion?
I did experiment with an expanded version but I like ‘the bits left out’ in this one.
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This is a short story written for an assignment for Creative Writing.
The brief was Sibling Rivalry, with a word limit of 1500.
This version is amended, based on comments from our tutor, David Pettigrew.
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This piece was written for a Writers’ Circus challenge, “Write about the ‘senses’.”
There was a second imperative.
Some of us in the Writers’ Circus are keen on short story competitions. I am not, but I was persuaded to stick to a discipline of 1,000 words and send this tale with my £5 entry fee.
Sadly it did not even make the long list. It is a bit off beat, I do admit.
This is more of a story for a winter’s morning. Given our summer in Scotland this year, it may suit over morning coffee.
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This is a longer short story which arose from a Writers’ Circus challenge.
The topic/title/theme was “High Water Mark”. On this occasion the topic was set by me.
This work has been edited by my friend Kareth Patterson from Writers’ Circus. She is a multi-talented person, very special. (She would immediately edit out the word “very”!!!)
On reading it she said it reminded her of the novelist Alistair MacLean- high praise indeed.
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