Pausing, only in his mind, to squeeze Sister Mary Bartholomew to his chest and whisper, ‘Who luvs ya baby?’ Father Michael Devine made his way to the confessional. Equipped with his stole, breviary, vacuum flask, and digestive biscuits he was … Continue reading Through My Own Fault – a version of this was read on Radio 4 & it appears in Mrs Rochester’s Attic – anthology

I was born in 1954 and grew up in the bandit country on the north-west frontier… of Wolverhampton. The Luftwaffe hadn’t taken the lead in town planning, not like in Coventry and Birmingham, so the council had to be responsible for their own devastation. In front of the town hall they replaced a market square, surrounded by ornate Victorian facades and walkways, with a Civic Centre whose design seemed to have been out-sourced behind the Iron Curtain. A large hole sat in the heart of town for a few years and when the builders eventually filled it up with plate … Continue reading Hinterland – a memoir of childhood

I was commissioned to write a story by West Midlands Reading Network to work on an Arts Council funded project. The story was published in a collection featuring work from five authors. In addition to myself, the authors were Kerry … Continue reading The Last Days of Cherry Blossom