Time for a close-up

WHO needed London’s West End, Rex Pargeter smiled, taking his usual bracing constitutional along Utterly On Sea’s promenade. He, as actor manager at the Castle Theatre, was king. Yet, like the sunny w

JOSH dabbed expertly at the cut he’d just finished sewing up. He’d made a neat job of it and it should heal very nicely, leaving only a line. It wouldn’t be seen, anyway, once the cat’s fur grew back.

THREE minutes,” the man in the suit announced to the room, his clipboard clutched in his hands. His words triggered a wave of panic among the entrants to Sunnywade’s Grand Summer Talent Contest 1967.

BONNIE MacGilvray was exhausted. She felt wrung out by life and the business she was in – all of it. A fortnight ago her husband had suggested that this might be the moment for her to go on a trip tha

THERE had to be at least 30 kids, milling around the ferry terminal like ants. “Why do people transport kids at night, anyway?” Julia asked her client, Mr Berry, who was chief buyer for the ferry cong

MILK?” Mrs Evans loomed over Alice Campbell’s teacup with a milk jug. The humidity in the tea shop was beginning to wilt the fabric violets in Alice’s little hat. She could see a few of the tiny flowe