As a child I was once commended for an essay based on Greek Mythology I’d written in green ink for a school competition. I was called to the Headmaster’s office and given a gold star and a vote of encouragement from the kindly Mr Thomas. As I was more interested…
It wasn’t much of a day of rest for my mother when Sunday dinner took half a day to prepare. If there was swede involved, or sprouts, it could be even longer as she liked to boil the Jesus out of the veg.
My father wouldn’t have lamb in the…
We came in peace for all mankind
It’s a standard white mug, printed with glossy black ink and I’ve had it since I was a small boy. The legend on it reads:
“Here, men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon.
July 1969 A.D. …
What are we having for tea Mammy?
We’ve got some lovely chops cariad.
It was a Thursday treat, especially for her bachelor uncles who came once a month for tea. Pork chops (with the kidney left in), mashed potatoes with the frying fat drizzled over, and frozen Bird’s Eye peas…
My first recollection of recorded music is listening to my mother’s choice of radio station while toddling around our living room. I was soothed by the tones of Louis Armstrong singing ‘Wonderful World,’ and although I doubt I could understand the words, I got the message.
I was born in…
An old tune from a concertina memory
At the age of fifty seven I find myself on the cusp between looking forward and looking back. For the past few years I have written about my past in as much detail as I could muster, detail which diminished as the memory…
I’ve been drawing naked people for a very long time. It’s OK, they all know I’m doing it, and so does my wife (who doesn’t mind in the least, and has posed for me herself). In fact, there is usually some financial arrangement by which I pay for the session…
You never know when it’s the last time you do something.
We’re not having fireworks this Bonfire Night. We didn’t have any last year either, breaking a run of twenty five years. We had some the year before, I know because I wrote the following in my diary:
Saturday 2nd…
It was a beige hooded raincoat; some nice detailing in the drawstrings and buttons, not too long. Fashionable in a late 80s The Face kind of way.
It went well with the new belt your mother had just bought you - good, thick, tan leather with a solid brass buckle…
The ghost of a memory
What kind of memory is that? my mind says to me as I try to remember a long-ago camping trip. The memory, the one about pissing on the Boy Scouts’ fire, has been conflated with an earlier time when I’d gone fishing over the mountain…
