1000 Words or Less

  The only thing better than travelling is re-living the experience by telling people about it afterwards My wife and I have decided, recently, that our travelling days are behind us.  Oh, we know people of our age, and older, find that a cruise works well for them but that means that most cruise ships these days are little more than floating retirement villages and, in these days of COVID, they could well be called plague ships.   We’ve been fortunate to have enjoyed heady days when, with just the minimum of planning, we could catch a jet aeroplane to the other side of the world.  Digital photographs  and mementoes bring back warm recollections of our adventures and Youtube videos can remind us of the excitement of being in exotic places.  But it is our own memories which help us best re-live those remarkable experiences we enjoyed when we were younger.   Sadly, though I enjoy talking about my experiences in out-of-the-way places, ...

           NOVEMBER 18, 2022   There was no doubt in Charles’s mind that he had been poorly treated: by his parents, by his schoolmates and, in fact, by everyone he knew.  Just thinking about all the injustices he had suffered in his relatively short life brought his pent-up rage to the fore. He felt himself drawing in a deep breath through his nose and letting it out slowly.  He had read about the berserkers of Viking times and how, in their ecstasy of rage, they experienced a red mist coming down over their eyes.  Charles was looking forward to reaching that level of anger but it still felt out of his reach. He had been an only child, sickly and spoiled.  His mother had protected him from interaction with other children, even to the point of walking him to and from school every day.  As she explained to her friends, the other children at the school were rough and her Charles was a ...

  0CT0BER 21, 2022   I suppose all of us at some time have looked back on our lives and wondered why they have turned out as they have.  What was the circumstance or set of circumstances which set us on the path which led us to the place we now occupy?  Can we identify one event which steered us in a particular direction?  I’ve spoken to friends about this: Derek told me it was the day he walked past an Army Recruiting Centre in London and thought “Why not?”.  That decision led to  his  having a long career in the Royal Marines.   Virginia says it was the day she looked at her doctor boyfriend and realised she couldn’t envisage a life as a doctor’s wife, said ‘Goodbye’ to him and applied for a teacher’s job in a different city.  People’s lives are often multi-dimensional, with twists and turns which demand decisions which will likely have unforeseen effects into the future.   It’s hard to pick a point in my ...

  OCTOBER 14, 2022   In the early-1800s, the birth of a child was not always a welcome event, especially to working-class families, who often struggled to put food on the table. However, Neil and Agnes Livingstone were delighted when their second child was born, on March 19, 1813.  The Livingstone family were deeply religious and every child was a blessing. In any case, it was likely that he would be able to contribute to the family income from about the age of eight. Agnes had seven babies in all, although not every one of them survived into adulthood.   This particular baby, born into poverty became one of the most famous missionaries of the 19 th  century, credited with bringing Christianity to the Dark Continent and becoming a hero to  generations of Africans.  He is, of course, David Livingstone.   I’ve seen the home where he was born and brought up, in the town of Blantyre.  It’s just a single room in Shuttle Row, a ...

  OCTOBER 7, 2022   You know what it’s like when you’re a kid: you think the world revolves around you and, once an idea gets into your head, it’s hard to shift it.  It was like that with me when I started at a new school.  My previous school was a tiny one-classroom arrangement in a country town but we had now moved to the city where my father had taken a job at a big factory.    Our new house was bigger than the one we had in the country but the yard seemed tiny, surrounded as it was by high wooden fences.  I had to leave my pony behind, too. Dad often played Eric Bogle records and the words of one of his favourite songs came back to me:               There’s no drought or starving stock             On a sewered suburban block …   And I thought, no room for a pony either.   I started at school on a Mond...

September 30, 2022   Jim supposed that everybody at some stage in their lives has a friend like Terence Bosley.  He was harmless enough but was the perennial outsider, never being welcomed into any of the social groups at school and always on the periphery of any activities that were organised.  Today they would say he lacked social skills but then it was thought he was just odd.  His name didn’t help - Terence.  Where the rest of the boys had good solid names like Matthew, Mark and John, Terence had been named after his great-grandfather who had been killed in World War 1 and his mother woudn’t allow him to shorten it.   Maybe his name was part of his problem.  If it had been Terry it might have been OK but Jim can’t imagine someone called Terence ever becoming a rock star or a drug dealer, or even a member of his group of friends.   One weekend, Jim and some friends planned a trip into the South-West of Tasmania to visit...

  AUGUST 26, 2022   There was a fellow in our office who used to drive me mad.  We started there together, just out of school and hoping to learn enough to call ourselves bookkeepers.  I had never intended to work with account books; my maths was alright but I was congenitally messy and my handwriting was appalling.  The account books we used had tiny squares and I found it really difficult to keep my numerals within the designated limits.   Day after day, the other junior clerk and I took the returns from the various station offices and transferred them into the impressive ledgers which recorded for posterity the success, or otherwise, of the New South Wales General Railways.  Oh, did I forget to mention that we were employed by the New South Wales General Railways, based in the wonderful complex of Sydney Central Station? Even though Toby and I  were friendly enough with each other, we were rivals for the coveted job of ...

  ‘Loch Ness!     What romantic images it engenders: moonlight quavering across the dark water, warm summer air and the gentle sound of wavelets breaking against the shore.’       Well, that’s what the tour brochure promised, with the added benefit of a potential sighting of the Loch Ness monster.     It was autumn and our tour bus was only half full.  It was no wonder that tourists don’t flock here at this time of the year; the evening air was icy and snow was still lying on the ground after the heavy fall the previous night.  I huddled into my heavy coat and pulled my scarf up around my nose and mouth.   I could hear the excited chatter of the other passengers from farther along the shore, most of them anxiously looking for signs of the elusive monster which everyone was hoping would make an appearance to give a lift to what had been a rather dull and predictable tour.  Wonders of Scotland, it was called a...

  APRIL 29, 2022                                                           When your days of toil are over and it’s time to take a break There are options to consider and decisions you must make For years you’ve spent each waking hour in trying to earn a crust And now you’ve got to fill your days or your brain will start to rust. Perhaps it’s time to take up bowls or join a cycling club Or learn to play the oboe, or take refuge in the pub Some take delight in reading books or watching DVDs But I’m sure you’ll find you’ll soon get tired of nothing more than these. Some folks take up cruising on the ocean wide and blue And you might think that could be fun but it might be boring too Some learn to use the inte...

  AUGUST 12, 2022   Through his High School years, George had ideas of going on to University and becoming a doctor but, in his heart, he knew this was not going to be possible.  The reality was that his parents were anxious for him to leave school so he could earn a wage and start contributing to the family income.  His father, in fact, had wanted him to leave school at the end of Year 10 and had even arranged an apprenticeship with a bricklayer he knew, but his teachers had pleaded with his mother to let him stay on until he matriculated, saying it would give him many more opportunities for the future.   At the graduation ceremony, George received accolades and the Principal made a point of singling him out for special praise.  With other students, he had visited various local companies to discuss career opportunities but, no matter what his preference, he knew that he would be expected to take the job closest to home which paid the highest...

     AUGUST 5, 2022     Charles Grantham had joined the Alabama Prison Service when he left school and had now reached the pinnacle of his career: through hard work and dedication he proudly held the position of Governor of Holman Prison.  His father would have been proud of him.  Throughout Charles’s childhood, his father had encouraged him to strive to make the most of his opportunities.   ‘Stay on your toes, son,” he would say, “Who knows when opportunity will appear?  Always be on your toes, ready to seize the chance.”  When the chance came to stand for election for the job of Governor, Charles received more votes than anyone else and was awarded the job.   Always following his father’s advice, Charles tried to ensure that the prison ran as efficiently as possible and brought in new rules to look after the welfare of prisoners.  It was hard, though.  Holman was a maximum security pris...

          JULY 22, 2022   I’ve made some mistakes in the past, I’m not too proud to admit and, when something embarrassing happens or I do something I later regret, I always resolve that I will be more careful in the future: in the future, when everything is rosy, birds sing and the sun shines every day, my aches and pains miraculously disappear and I never get a day older.   Humans, generally, seem to believe that, no matter how dire things are at the moment, they can only get better.  It’s that optimism which allows us to take a boring, soul-destroying job in the expectation that it will turn into a future career.  When we are hardly out of school, we borrow unimaginable amounts of money to buy a house which we may never pay off and which may need to be replaced when our family grows a little more than we expected.  And the system works.  When I was 8 years old, my parents opened an account ...

          JULY 15, 2022   It was love at first sight, they said.  But everybody says that, even if the first emotion that passed between them was indifference.  Still, when you’re eighteen and all those around you are pairing up, the last thing you want is to be unattached: left on the shelf, they call it, like a slightly damaged box of soap powder that nobody wants infiltrating their shopping bag.  In a situation like that, even Barry was acceptable.  Easy-going, non-threatening, safe, unexciting Barry was how Freda heard him described but, as her mother often said, there’s a Jack for every Jill, and it looked like Barry was the only Jack in sight.     Both mothers thought the news of an engagement was wonderful and you would swear you heard your father breathe a sigh of relief when you came home holding the sparkling ring aloft for all to see.  And the wedding day was joy...

  MAY 20, 2022   “Good morning, Watson.  I hope you slept well.”   “Good morning, Holmes,” I replied. “I would have slept better if I hadn’t had to suffer the sounds of your blasted violin at about 5 o’clock.  What’s the matter?  You seem out of sorts.”   “Well, I suppose I am,” said Sherlock Holmes. “The truth of it is that I am bored.  We haven’t had a decent case for me to get my teeth into since that business with the Duke of York and the young lady of ill repute.  I’ve decided that, if we hear nothing today, I’m going down to the farm to check on my bees.”   “Don’t worry, old chap,” I said, in my most reassuring doctor’s voice. “Everything will turn out for the best.  Take my word for it.”   At that moment Mrs Hudson tapped on the door to announce she was bringing our morning cup of tea. “And there’s a person here to see you, Mr Holmes. She says it’s urgent.”   By the unequivocal sniff th...