Now and then

THERE could be no doubt about it – Julie was a handful. Brought up by her grandparents when her wayward mother took off, Julie seemed to have spent her young life on a mission to prove that she was no

OH yes!” Jean said suddenly. “I knew there was something I meant to ask you, Maureen. “Do you have a really good writing pad?” We were sitting in my conservatory, letting our tummies settle after scof

When I was a child, we had a tortoise called Winnie who had belonged to my father when he was a boy in the 1950s. He called his pet Winston after Churchill, but this name had to be changed when he dis

Ben hunched over in the cab of the lorry, eyes cast down, earphones firmly in place. He tugged his hoodie further over his face and ramped up his music, trying to drown out his stepdad, along with the

I JUST couldn’t get used to New York. I always felt as if it was closing in on me. That’s why I strode along the sidewalks at a pace, just as everyone else seemed to. It was as if there was no tomorro

TESS was completely disorientated when she woke up. Her eyes flickered open and she found herself facing an unfamiliar pale green wall. The room, wherever it was, held a faint hint of the new wallpape