Mrs Holloway’s Annual Parade of the Brightest and Best

“The brightest and best of you,” says Mrs Holloway, clapping her hands with palms flat and fingers pointing upwards, so that each clap is a prayer of thanks. And so begins the Annual Parade…

Ginger Spice

The girl had been born with a flamboyant red curl on the top of her head, and so her father labelled her ‘Ginger’. The label quickly became a name, inscribed in royal-blue ink on her birth certificate, and maybe that was part of the problem. A problem that grew as she grew. Because Ginger was the name of a spice (or a cat) and not a woman’s name at all…

The Saturday Girl and The Heavy-Breather

The jars of pickle were kept at the back of the cellar. Of course. They wouldn’t be conveniently positioned at the bottom of the stairs. That would be far too easy. I’d already heard the jokes about the ghost. The one nobody ever saw, but everyone had heard…

The Crown (La Corona)

We do not know why the king went into the cave. Was he hiding? Seeking solitude? Was he meeting a lover? Or an envoy of his neighbour to negotiate a transfer of power? Was he fed up of being a king? I once asked my nursemaid and she told me it was better not to know. I disagreed with her. It’s always better to know…

The Quiet Fight and Flight of Florence Morgan

His moustache wriggled like a caterpillar when he laughed. Florence hated it. She hated the moustache, she hated the high waistband of his tweed trousers, the way George cleared his throat all the time – huh-hummm. The protruding mole by his ear, the smell of stale pipe tobacco, the way he kept his fingernails so long that they cut into the skin of her arm now as he gripped her. She shook her arm, but he held it all the tighter. And while his mouth smiled, she saw anger in his eyes…

The Protest: A Short Story

A short story about the things we hide from others, and even from ourselves.

The Perfect Gift: Short Story

This story is dedicated to all those who breathed their last breath in ‘the war to end all wars’ – if only that were true – and to the memory of Harry Redman, my great-grandfather, who managed to live through it all. Unlike so many of his fellow soldiers.