Don’t get me wrong, at heart I am a petrolhead, and have enjoyed some fast, exotic, gas guzzling motors over the decades of my long driving life. I still hanker after my Maserati, Porsche, open top Jags and Alfas. However, old age, realism and concern for the environment has tempered… Read more: Far Too Far To Go By Car

Last week I was privileged to attend a talk and an event that are inspiring examples of endeavour by spirited individuals working in the natural world.  On Wednesday eveningI watched a film presentation by Marek Borkowski, a man who during the last fifty years has managed to save and preserve… Read more: Endeavour

I must have been about 10 years old when I had my first rush of creative writing. I had been asked by my English teacher, the indomitable, Mr Horne, a man with keen sense of the absurd, to write an essay on anything we fancied for a homework exercise. This… Read more: Are You Sitting Comfortably? Well I’ll Begin…

The little girl clambered into her wooden bed and pulled the wool blanket up to her chin. Lying back on her straw mattress she could see the lighthouse through her tiny bedroom window. The lighthouse was painted white and it stood proud atop a small rocky outcrop surrounded by crashing… Read more: The Winter Madness of the Lighthouse Keeper

Chapter 13 The manorial court rolls in medieval times mentions Jacob’s Acres as common land used by villeins to raise cattle, sheep and grow cereals. Under the feudal system they paid dues every year to the Lord of the Manor. When the Enclosure Act came into being in the early… Read more: The Return Chapters 13-15 – the Conclusion

Chapter 10 Simon Padfoot is looking over his business plans for the fifty houses on Jacob’s Acres. He will trigger his option to purchase as soon as planning is granted. The vendor is a Cayman Island Trust Fund, the real owner is surrounded in secrecy. All his dealings to date… Read more: The Return – Chapters 10-12

The Return Chapters 7-9 Chapter 7 ‘Hello, what can I do for you?’ Ask the Rector, as she is about to put on her blue clerical blouse and collar. A man has emerged silently through the vestry door into the robing room of St Mary’s. He is dressed as a… Read more: The Return – Chapters 7-9

Chapter 4 Sir Shackleton Huntswick is feeling out of sorts. The last council meeting had been perfectly satisfactory although there was worry that the planned housebuilding on  Jacob’s Acres would do untold damage to the fabric of the village. Fifty new houses was a lot to absorb. The open pasture and… Read more: The Return Chapters 4-6

Chapter 4 Sir Shackleton Huntswick is feeling out of sorts. The last council meeting had been perfectly satisfactory although there was worry that the planned housebuilding on  Jacob’s Acres would do untold damage to the fabric of the village. Fifty new houses was a lot to absorb. The open pasture and… Read more: The Return Chapters 4-6

Author’s Note:  This is a Novella, only 15000 words.  The chapters are deliberately short. The following 3 installments will appear in another week. The Return: Chapters 1-3  Chapter 1 Dr. Kirsty Daventry slams her cottage door and on hearing the reassuring sound of the lock click into place, she places… Read more: The Return

When the little girl clambered into her wooden bed she could see through a tiny window a light house that stood proud on the tip of rocky land close by her croft. In the summer months, when darkness was brief, she could see the two lighthouse keepers moving about in… Read more: The Man In The Lighthouse

I am a keen supporter of Next-Up, an organisation created by the talented Victoria Tomlinson. Next-Up encourages retired professional and business folk to put their ‘parked’ experience to good use with voluntary organisations, charities and SMEs. It is a fact that too many highly experienced executives hit the retirement button… Read more: Why not to retire

Douglas Adamson, author of a Yorkshire trilogy of crime and lust, shares how he self-published and then found a publisher.

Douglas Adamson, author of a Yorkshire trilogy of crime and lust, shares how he self-published and then found a publisher.

Last week I met an Englishman living in south western France. Nothing unusual in that you might think, but how he got there is. The man, who for the purposes of this reading, I will call David, was born brought up in Barnsley and was an IT specialist working in… Read more: Momentous Life Changes

I’m currently reading a fascinating book called ‘Walking with Cattle.’ I know it hardly seems an immediately enticing read but I came across it in a splendid new, independent, book shop in Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland. Despite Fort William’s strategic location close to the foot of Ben Nevis and… Read more: Seeking solitude in a shrinking world

A short story: Gannet: Sula bassana. Very large seabird, cigar shaped with a six foot wingspan. Narrow, black tipped wings and a white body with ochre head. A superb, graceful flyer, prefers open sea except when breeding. Dives from a great height to catch fish. “When thou going to get… Read more: The Miner Who Would Be A Gannet

Preamble: I wrote this piece for my ‘Radio for the Blind’ recording on 01 November, my predictions appear to have been prescient as we had a heavy fall of snow this week.  Well we are heading for it now. The clocks have turned back and I have lit my open… Read more: Will it snow this winter?

I came across this piece of dialogue in Scott Fitzgerald’s great novel, Tender is the Night. Dick Diver, one of the central characters, says: “Good manners are an admission that everybody is so tender that they have to be handled with gloves. Now, human respect – you don’t call a man a coward… Read more: When manners obscure meaning

The communications industry is obsessed with ‘content’. In layman’s language this means copy and visual material for websites, blogs, social media sites and internal briefing documents. There is an overload of ‘content’ and therefore a greater need for brevity and conciseness. Engaging audiences among the tsunami of non-stop communications has… Read more: Beware Content Blindness