These are my shorts, and below are links to some
of my short stories. Sometimes I get an idea and have to write
the story, and sometimes a whole thread comes out - some of my stories
have a similar theme or 'twist' to them because they were written
one after the other, and others just stand alone. I hope you enjoy
them, as much as I do writing them. I have written three full length
novels but as yet none have been published. The last rejection that
I got from Headline Publishing was so good, I kept it ! You never know.
The Anniversary
was written mainly because I have an interest
in classic cars - I like to read the classic car magazines, and
an idea occured to me which became this story of a couple setting
out on their wedding anniversary, and never arriving, or always
making the journey, for eternity.
I spent some time working on the computers
at Gatwick and Heathrow. I also like the Everly Brothers 'Ebony
Eyes', and so
Flight 216
grew out of that, and the idea of a lost aircraft
finally making its destination.
B Company
draws on the exercises (manouvers) that I took
part on whilst based in Germany and the idea of what might have
happened if a modern equipped patrol ran into a crack Waffen
SS patrol.
I had an idea for a science fiction short that
I could have developed into a much longer story, but that was how
Coming Home
got to be written.The idea may not be original,
but it was just my take on how we might blow ourselves to pieces someday.
For a short and unhappy time I owned a Jaguar.
I did not like that car, but during the time I owned it there
was a late recall to fix two hoses that could shear and render the
car both brakless and unsteerable. It was this that prompted
Jimmy's Jag
- that and the dealer that I bought the car from.
For Max
I went back to Celle - not literally, but in
my mind. Much of the background lies there.
One year I drove from Boston to Niagara Falls.
On the way I stopped at a town called Little Falls in New York
State. It was just as I imagined smalltown USA to be. A very
dear friend of mine also took me around his home town of
Bedford NH, which is much the same. Joining these places together gave me
the town in which I set
Red and Me.
David, this one was for you.
Returning to the North London that I grew up in,
The Flats
came about by that experience.
What would happen if you picked up your morning
newspaper and it was the edition due out tomorrow ? That was
the thought behind
Tomorrow's News
, but I tried to give it a little twist at the end.
Friends
is, I suppose, a variation on 'Red and Me'. Another time, another war perhaps.
There is no comradeship like that in the forces - but you have to have served
to understand that.
So here they are, some of my tales. I do not
claim to be a novelist, I just enjoy writing the odd story or two and
if somebody else reads one and enjoys it, well thats what its all
about I think.
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