A retired man, divorced and home from working abroad, is facing up to life without his family. He returns to a favourite place – a beach in the Northeast of England – with his memories, to try to come to terms with what he has lost. However, what he finds on the beach is completely unexpected.

The trouble with being a writer is, even though I spend so much time thinking, or reading (and calling it research), whenever I plan to take time off away from the laptop, and do other things, in this case, a 1,000-piece jigsaw, my writing brain won’t switch off, and keeps giving me ideas!

This story is about an older man looking back at a pivotal point in his childhood, where he and the rest of his family learned some home truths, courtesy of a farmer’s wife, and, of course, a llama.

Glasses, Spectacles, whatever they’re called, they’ve been a part of my life ever since I was ten years old. Life suddenly stopped being blurry and, even when I was sat at the back of the class, I was able to read the maths questions on the board. Why it took until I was ten for anyone to realise I was short-sighted, is a story for another day: but, since then, I have always needed “specs.”

This relationship story covers from when boy first meets girl, all the way to when death shall part them. As they first met in a treehouse, treehouses feature in their story all the way through to the end. A tale of the passing of time.

At this point in ‘Warrior Princess, Errant Page,’ Anglo-Saxon Princess Emma has been sent to eastern Bohemia, so she and her future (and younger) husband can get to know each other. Things, as we find out in this chapter, clearly have not gone to plan.

The theme we were given, was ‘travel,’ but, though international travel does make an appearance by the end, this story majors on the journey of life for two star-crossed lovers from differing social backgrounds who meet (where else?) while performing ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ A happy ending for once? Read on to find out …

Resolute Books (who published Warrior Princess, Errant Page) are doing a series on social media about favourite children’s books. I thought I would put an expanded version of my contribution up here.

This is the draft opening chapter of the second book about Podevin and Emma. It is ten years since we left them at the end of ‘Warrior Princess, Errant Page,’ but their peace is about to be disrupted by the machinations of others; like the Saxons, and Emma’s husband. I hope you enjoy this taster of my latest writing …

I was challenged to write a fantasy short story. Although it is not my usual genre, I came up with a tale about the ‘fey’ offspring of a human father and a fairy mother – and what happened when he and his mother wanted to return to fairyland. The tale is told in two halves: Benjamin’s story, and the judge’s response.

On 10th March, 2025, my first novel, ‘Warrior Princess, Errant Page’ was released onto an unsuspecting public. I am happy, relieved, thrilled, and amazed that I have got this far having promised my sons so long ago that I would find out who the page was.

I originally wrote this story a couple of years ago, but now I, like my fictional characters, am in the middle of house move (though not because of any bullying!), it seemed appropriate to post a revised version here. The story is about the lengths some parents will go to, in order to secure their child’s happiness.

I did not intend writing a poem about wildlife, and certainly not this poem. However, before my divorce, I did used to live in a place where foxes and deer, and other wild animals, would emerge from the wood to rest, play and (at least the herbivores) eat. Not the cheeriest of pieces, but I hope you enjoy it none-the-less.

The theme for this month’s short story was ‘brief encounter,’ and what could be briefer than an anonymous, paid-for sexual encounter? However, if the young lady in question has reached the end of her tether, her father is her pimp, and the ‘client’ not very nice … Well, it could all end in a murder, or possibly two, couldn’t it?

A double bluff is usually defined as an action or statement that is intended to appear as a bluff but is in fact genuine. Here an older brother uses a double bluff, and some straight-forward untruths, to get his younger sibling out of trouble. Whether he is likely to succeed in the long-term remains to be seen.

This is a tale about someone bullied at school finally striking back forty years later. In a way, he loses so much, but he also gains his freedom, and his truth. He can stop living in the shadows and emerge into the light.

Like many old churchyards, my local parish church, St Michael’s on Greenhill, Lichfield, has its share of graves and memorials with connections to history. Near our War Memorial, is a plaque commemorating a soldier from an earlier war. John Browne served in the Crimean War and was present, and took part in, the charge of the Light Brigade.

The below is adapted from an article I wrote for St Michael’s Parish Magazine.

Choose a poem and write a story based around it – that was the task. I chose ‘A Smuggler’s Song’ by Rudyard Kipling, and weaved a dark tale about the head of a smuggling gang, his family, and his war with King George’s excise men. For those who do not know it, the poem is at the end of the story.

These days, many of us only ever think about chimneys at Christmas-time, when Santa comes to visit. However, this story reminds us it wasn’t all fun and games when the coal fire in the lounge was the only source of winter heat – which was true for a lot of people back in the nineteen sixties and seventies.

It has taken sixteen years, but next spring, around March or April 2025, copies of the young adult historical novel ‘Warrior Princess and Errant Page’ – all about King Wenceslas’s page and his relationship with King Alfred the Great’s granddaughter – should be available in ebook and paperback versions.