WOULD you look at the man!” Maggie said. She wasn’t much to look at herself, being as black as sin from the coal dust. She’d just finished a shift at the colliery screens, picking lumps of coal out of

WHAT was the man thinking of when he did his shopping? Jessie thought. Two huge, brown paper parcels spilled food on to the kitchen table. Enough to feed a family for a fortnight at least. Slices of t

I’m the same age as my mum and dad were when our family moved in next door to Mrs. Dolan. They seemed old to me back then, but I know now that they weren’t. They were a young couple at the beginning o

Julie stared out of the window at her garden, mostly bare branches with only a few spots of colour in the deep red of the dogwood and silver cineraria. She sighed – it was that unsettling period after

WASN’T it you who used to work behind the bar at the Frog and Lettuce?” Susan Tallboys looked up. She’d been fastening the buttons of her overcoat, suppressing her dislike of its worn fabric and its m

I t’s one of those January mornings where the sun is so dazzling it tricks you into thinking you don’t need to wear four layers and two pairs of socks. I made the error of leaving the house wearing my