True Stories Showcase
Rachel Derrington – The Vale of the White Horse
Trapped by concrete, walled in by bricks, sirens torture me nightly. Discontentment of life plagues me. I blame myself, of course – a younger me, for my carefree days and blasé attitude to the passing of time. I scrabble through this insomnia to a different place for comfort and peace. I often search for it but my depression has a cruel way of tainting the pleasures of youth. Memories that should be softened nostalgically by age become replaced, focussing on what was not; rather than what was.
This time, however, my search brings forth a precious snippet from across the years to sit with me awhile. I call out to myself, to when I simply filled time, not trying to make memories, just being. There I find the Vale of the White Horse.
Nestled within farm land lay two villages side by side, merged by expansion but unique in their own identity. Their joint name is Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor. Life is gentle, unassuming and the local folk speak with a soft country lilt. Southmoor is where I call home.
The heat of mid-summer changes the soundscape. Tractors and combine harvesters chug through the lanes, birds sing and twitter. These are the noises that conduct me into sleep rather than jolt and steal it away.
Hazy heat and long days push us outside, where we belong. Bike rides, tents and picnics – midnight and noon. We play in the river and take long bike adventures along winding roads through ‘chocolate box’ villages.
It was one of those close, humid days before the thunder of summer. Do you remember how the dark clouds drooped across the horizon?
The claustrophobic heat makes the world slow and quiet now. My shoes make sticky noises on the hot tarmac as I walk up the lane to meet with Em. We cross the busy main road and head towards our favourite place, ‘The Loggie’.
The Log Cabin is made from planks of wood whose darkness shines in this heat. The thick tar smell of warming creosote hangs in the air while ice lollies drip faster than we can chase them with our tongues. Inside the newsagent, chocolate melts and the open sweet boxes gift our nostrils and make our teeth tingle with anticipation. Selecting our 20p mix up, we fill white paper bags with our booty.
Through the carpark out back we duck under the gate and a few minutes later are lost in the crops. Young green ears containing seeds are smooth on our bare legs and reach high up to our shoulders.
Em is first, spreading her jacket and falling back amongst the stalks, she disappears into her own private pod. Laughing I fall alongside her. Staring up into the wide blue we suck our sweets and lie together content and quiet in the way only best friends can. Just filling time, not making memories.
Tonight, I close my eyes and I’m back again with Em when we enjoyed time. I choose to forget my lonely walk home that day as the dark clouds gathered behind me. Do you remember how they drooped across the horizon?
Instead I am comforted by the warmth of my own life remembered.
John Lucas – Chains
Late afternoon across the state line, down from the mountains towards the sea. Five hours behind us, two more to Charleston, that well-heeled tourist town. Sparkling waterfront, pastel buildings and fancy restaurants. All awash with slow southern charm. But I know that by the second day under its warm September sun, the spirits of the African ships anchored in the harbour, the human markets and their unbearable misery, will reach through the veil making me wish to be gone. And more recent crimes misguided and hateful, clinging to the past like the Spanish Moss to the trees, cast shadows in the streets and squares.
Gas, iced tea and fried chicken draw us down from the highway to a small downtown down on its luck. I wait to turn into the parking lot to let the skinny black kid cross and looking around I begin to think that this was not a place where I should linger. He was young, maybe eighteen. Low slung jeans like bellows on top of the unlaced boots. Oversized black coat blowing open, showing the heavy gold chains. Giant headphones clamped over his durag. And that walk. Exaggerated, menacing or comical, depending on whether you belonged. With twitches and flicks and forced rhythm, driven maybe from unheard rap.
As I paused to let him pass, I hoped he would not look up and fix me with a stare of malice or lunacy or dangerous chemistry. We sat in the car for a minute to make sure he had gone before walking over to pull open the grease-blurred glass door and release the hot cloud of moist oily air. From the dim interior, his eyes swiveled to fix us and ensure we could not back away.
So we stepped nervously inside, joining behind him in that short queue. Resuming his conversation, he spoke softly to the white girl behind the counter in a voice that his grandfather might have used outside of church on a bright Sunday morning fifty years ago. Polite and respectful, asking about her family and if they were well and if she was feeling better after someone had tail-ended her car. She thanked him and returned the compliment, blushing slightly as, with a tattooed hand, she tucked a stray hair back under her net. Both of them formal and respectful, like they were seventy years old with manners to match.
Although he had come to see her, he had other business too, so the girl called out back for Mister Juan and Miss Nancy to come. They bustled out of the kitchen with smiles and shouts of happy greeting. Nancy leaned over the counter to hug him, Juan high-fived a hand in welcome, his other carried a small plaque, black with gold engraving.
So a small tableau formed with Mister Juan making the presentation, handing over the award with a smile and a handshake. While Miss Nancy took the photographs and the girl clapped and gently cheered, he smiled shyly and awkwardly at his newfound status as “Employee of the Month”. And I quietly took my tray to a corner table, reflecting on my newfound status as something else entirely.
Wendy McCardle – Fish
Holidays with Grandma and Auntie meant fish.
Grandma walked down to the quay in Amble to buy her fish fresh from the boat – mackerel, haddock or herrings, wrapped in a sheet from the Morpeth Herald. We liked going with her, my sister and I, we liked the brisk walk in the fresh, salty air, and a chat with the men on the boats. But why, coming back, must we pass by the sheds? Why must she always take that route? Peeping inside we could see women gutting, standing with knives in their waterproof aprons, buckets of guts at their feet. The smell made me retch every time.
“Come on, Grandma.” I would pull on her hand, eager to get out of range of the stink.
Sometimes she bought a live crab. She brought it home dangling on a string, desperately snapping with its claws, as if it guessed what was coming: a slow death in a pan of boiling water. Walking along beside Grandma, we stayed well clear as it snipped and snapped with its crab-coral claws, searching in vain for the sand, the rocks, the sea.
In Amble we always ate fish. Battered and seasoned and fried in a pan, we took it for granted – it was fried fish, so what? But today we’d consider it gourmet food, those goujons of haddock so expertly cooked by our unwitting masterchef, Gran.
Aunt Edna was fond of fish too. She had friends in North Shields in the trade. When they came to stay – as they frequently did – they brought with them whole salmon, giant prawns, posh stuff. Nonetheless, Edna’s great weakness was for something quite different. It was winkles, freshly boiled, that she liked best of all, and she took us to Hauxley, to help with the pick. We had to have buckets, one each, and good strong shoes to walk on the barnacled rocks. Disgusting it was, for two little girls in their best summer dresses, picking at sea-snails on dark, slimy boulders. But Aunt Edna must be obeyed.
We went out one day and found winkles galore – winkles all over the rocks. We picked them till our backs were breaking and our small fingers ached. Then at last Edna let us go home to our supper and bed, where, sandy and sea-fresh, we straight away sank into dreams. And while we slept, and while we dreamt about sand, sea and snails, Aunt Edna downstairs made her fateful decision: she decided to go to bed too. Boiling the winkles could wait till next day.
Next morning we woke to our auntie’s shrill shrieks and in panic we raced down the stairs. Was there a burglar? A fire? Had Grandma collapsed? In great trepidation we peeped into the kitchen where Edna stood wringing her hands. There were three empty buckets at her feet and around her on the walls and the floor and the ceiling, on the cooker and the washer and the sink, a thousand winkles trailed their silvery slime, as they made their escape, as they searched in vain for the sand, the rocks and the sea.
Audrey Polkinghorn – Afternoon Matinee
The unusual absence of children’s voices spoke volumes when I arrived at the Sunderland Empire one cold and dismal Wednesday afternoon. The usually bustling entrance was still asleep from the previous evening’s entertainment.
I climbed the elegant staircase leading to the Vesta Tilley bar where the people met for a drink before each show.
The opulent mirrors, normally glistening in splendour in the evening, alas, were now unpolished prisms and unreflective of their familiar beauty on this dowdy afternoon.
Cheer up old girl, was my immediate reaction to the sombre start, wandering over to the bar, where sparkling lights were beckoning. An exotic array of alcohol in all its entirety, enticingly displayed, dangled before my eyes. However, in deep disappointment were inaccessible being imprisoned behind decorative wrought iron bars.
(BAR CLOSED) in ebony against a stark white board- displayed.
Two chic ladies, fashionably dressed, in mauve and navy, sipped a glass of white wine beneath the twinkling eye of Vesta Tilley, who’ no doubt was in full approval. They were about to enjoy the occasion’ however, I did wonder how they had managed to acquire the drink, but nothing was about to cramp their style as they chattered.
A gentleman with black suit and tie, stood confidently at the bar end, observing the aged clientele, trickling in. A steady stream of grey waves, umbrellas and walking sticks, made their way towards the nearest seats. Mutters of bad weather not fit to be out in unwittingly filled my ears, whilst another small gathering of maturity, spoke aloofly, in their native tongue, alien to the surroundings.
Music flowed into the cold ambience dampening any traces of hospitality. The rising odour of forgotten fragrance, reminding me of by gone days.
Glancing above at the isolated chain dangling from the ceiling, which once bore the most luxurious chandelier of all time; sharpened the solitude, prompting memories of happier times.
The bell rings out beckoning the congregation to the auditorium; the show is about to commence. Tides of unassuming visitors make their way towards the exit of the Victorian bar, many evocative of the era.
No rush of gibbering excitement only the youth can muster, no jumping and clapping hands in delight as demonstrated by the little ones, only the unhurried and disciplined conformity of the seriously disabled filtering out of sight.
Observing the now desolate scene, of the diluted atmosphere where the old folks muttering drained into the distance I turned and witnessed the forsaken paper cartons of the modern world left for collection and recycle.
Reminiscent of my last evening of entertainment at this theatre, within the very same room where energy and vigour flowed into the electrifying atmosphere, along with the alcohol and bright lights, I asked myself, what possessed me, in all my years of wisdom, to refashion my routine? Oh yes, of course, I remember now, my old age which once again deprived me of an enjoyable experience as I would never again return to an afternoon matinee.
Sharon Richardson – Fighting for Life
Charlie’s metal boot segs clattered on the cobbles as he ran down the road to the river. “Please let me be on time, please don’t let me be too late…” he chanted under his breath. There was no pleading to God, the only thing he was devout about was his atheism.
Tom had ran into the kitchen minutes before and cried, “Mam, dad, our Derek’s fallen in the river!”, Charlie had held his breath, not wanting to believe what he heard, he leapt out of his chair, although it felt as if he was moving in slow motion.
The boys shouldn’t have been out so long on their own. Winnie had been distracted since they’d lost their youngest the previous week.
His wife had always been “delicate” as her father had told Charlie when they’d married. Losing the baby had pushed her to the edge.
The doctor’s wife had been sharing the same ward in the small maternity hospital. Winnie was convinced that their healthy baby boy, had been swapped for the sickly baby born to the doctor’s wife.
Winnie’s baby boy, never left the hospital and died at one day old, while she had slept. Winnie had withdrawn into a fog of grief ever since.
Charlie had barely seen his new baby and amidst the turmoil of his emotions was guilt, for feeling slightly relieved that there wasn’t going to be an extra mouth to feed.
Now however that same guilt was blocking his throat, tightening his lungs. Was he now to lose another son within the month? It will break Winnie, would it break him?
He could hear choking breathless sounds coming from somewhere. Then he realised those sounds were erupting from his own throat.
He’d moved his family from South Shields to North Shields to be closer to his job in the dock yard, it’s turned out to be too close.
His steps slowed as he got closer to the river, the glistening gulf of water between the Shields, getting bigger as he got closer, Charlie wanted to delay the moment he might find his three-year-old, blue eyed boy, face down in the Tyne or worse not be able to see him at all.
His eyes darted around trying to see if there were any fishermen in port, he was calculating times and tides in his head, he’d take a boat without consent if necessary, then he suddenly ground to a halt.
There climbing over the top of the ladder, fixed to the dock side, and running towards him dripping wet, his arms outstretched and a big smile on his face was Derek, Charlie swung him up into his arms, holding the soaked little body close to his heaving chest, Derek then said “Look dad, me can swim!”.
I’d like to add that I’m very glad that my dad, Derek, did learn to swim back in 1932, otherwise I wouldn’t be here tonight.
Mark Robertson – Two Berks not much Hair
I had met Dekka Cartwright irregularly for years in a rundown pub that didn’t really get going until everywhere else had closed. We’d discuss the environment, politics, “The big bang”. His name would appear regularly in the Sunderland Echo, usually GBH and the like. It was never easy to reconcile the erudite thinker with the street fighting man of the court reports. Only once did he manage to combine his love of science with his propensity for criminality.
It had started as a wager, between Decca and an old sparring partner, known locally as “Baldy Argos”, who had gained his moniker due to his ability to acquire, almost instantly, any product at a “no questions asked” sort of price. Their bet, conceived during a prolonged drinking session, concerned the liberation of a human skeleton from their old school biology lab. This proved to be such a walkover that its conclusion was something of an anti-climax. Surely being in possession of human remains was an opportunity for greater mischief than this.
At their “local” the deceased was admirably kitted out from the lost property box. A decent flat cap, a jacket and a pair of ancient Harris Tweed trousers. Taking a shine to this new arrival the regulars were soon including him in their rounds as the night progressed. His stubborn unwillingness to consume this bounty led to his new “carers” being more than a little well-oiled when “time” was called.
Staggering past the local graveyard, a while later, proved a catalyst. A piece of rope attached to the convenient hook in his head was all that it needed. Shinning up a tree inside the cemetery, remains in tow, they awaited their first victim. They clocked, him singing “The Old Rugged Cross” at the top of his voice. He could barely walk but he could belt out a tune. Big fella, big beard and a belly full of beer. It took him a full twenty minutes to reach them, two steps forward one step back. The giggling pair almost falling out of the tree more than once. He was singing an umpteenth chorus when they launched Mr. Bones out in front of him. Their mark was sober in a second, had invoked the entire Holy Trinity before two and broke the land speed record before a third one had elapsed. They pulled it off twice more but in the end one of the legs fell off making them quite maudlin. At this point “Baldy Argos” had the bright idea of placing the body in the road before calling an ambulance.
There in a flash, it came around the corner all bells ringing like ‘The Key Stone Cops and the Flying Doctor all rolled into one . . . And there they were ‘the devastated ‘kin’ crouched over him, holding his thin little hand, a look of deep concern on their faces. Turning to the Uniforms and sobbing in a cracked voice Decca managed to communicate through his turmoil “Sorry he’s gone, he’s passed over . . . you’re too late.”
They were pretty easy meat for the Police to stick in the Black Maria when it showed up. Unable to run for the booze in their legs or the tears in their eyes.
They got six months. Unlike the skeleton it was not suspended.
Greta Skelton – My Worst Christmas
Sitting with chorister at midnight mass. I had never felt so alone. The angelic boy soprano sang once in royal David’s city. His beautiful clear voice reverberating around the packed church. Rows of happy excited faces of the congregation. Wondering what tomorrow would bring. The huge Pine Christmas tree adorned with baubles and twinkling lights reflected on the beautiful stained glass windows. Like a myriad of rubies and diamonds. The Vicars voice seemed distant. I was enveloped in my own misery and sorrow. A broken heart hanging like a brick in my chest. I had lost soul mate. Dad had passed away in November. Suffering from the debilitating disease Alzheimer’s which took over his body. We had always been very close. Coming to every midnight mass together. I watched the big strong man I loved , who was full of life become a fragile bent invalid. oblivious of his surroundings. Towards the end I prayed for god to take him. When his time came the pain and heartache was and still is very hard to endure. Brought out of my reverie the choir master gestured for us to stand. The organist began to play O come all ye faithful. I kept my eyes fixed on the magnificent cross above the alter tears blurring my vision. Dad had been an alter boy. He had a beautiful singing voice until the end. Everyone was joyous as they left the church. I walked home alone. Turning my key in the lock, it felt as though a dark cloud had fallen. Mum sat in silence. Her eyes brimming with unshed tears. They were married for thirty five years with never a day apart. Christmas day came and went. Presents bought long before Dad’s passing lay unopened. A box with it’s silver bow shining in the lamp light beckoned to me. The card written by Mum, read to my darling daughter love from dad. With trembling hands I undid the bow. Inside was a cassette tape. Turning on the player Dad’s tenor voice filled the room, singing his favourite song, I’ll walk with god. Followed by a poignant message, Don’t be sad sweetheart. Have a wonderful life till we meet again. I knew then that he was watching over me, and always would.
Glenda Young – The Window Cleaner
I was in my early twenties when I started my first proper job. They gave me a company car and I felt like the bees-knees. I used to drive my mam to the town on a Saturday to go shopping. But one day I had to drive to Washington for a work meeting – and that’s when I crashed the car.
It was an error of judgment that was all my own fault. To be honest, it wasn’t really a crash. I just scraped another car on a roundabout. Thankfully I wasn’t hurt and neither was the man in the other car.
But he got out of his car, red in the face and yelled at me. I didn’t cry or yell back as I knew it was my fault. Despite being in shock, I stayed calm and pulled my car off the road. I handed over the company insurance details and then took the bus back to work.
But things didn’t end there… far from it.
Over the next few weeks the man whose car I’d damaged started coming to my office at work, demanding to see me. He was still angry, still yelling, still red in the face. He blamed me for holding up his insurance payout. No matter how much I explained that it was the company dragging its feet, he kept on blaming me.
The man wanted his insurance money, I understood that. But he was threatening and nasty whenever he came in – and he came in a lot – at least once a week over a couple of months. I remained as professional as I could when he ranted in the office but the truth was I was terrified of him.
Anyway, at work I was doing really well, so well that I’d bought my own flat. It was a Tyneside flat and I lived in the one upstairs. Just after I moved in, I was watching the telly when I heard a noise at the sitting room window. I turned to see a window cleaner’s ladder and then seconds later, with a cloth in his hand, the window cleaner appeared.
It was him.
The man whose car I’d crashed into. The man who had badgered and terrified me for months. I stared at him and he stared at me. It was hard to say which one of us was the most shocked. I fled from the sitting room. Minutes later there was a knock at the front door but I was too scared to answer. Weeks later, the insurance paid up and I never saw the man again.
It’s been thirty years since all of this happened. But even now, the sound of a window cleaner’s ladder against an upstairs window still makes my stomach churn with fear.