This tale began as a simple idea in which a drone would be used to gain dominance in a drugs turf war. The main action takes place over a two day period in May 2014.
Much of what occurs takes place in Bridge of Weir, a real town located to the west of Glasgow, a very respectable and well-heeled enclave.
Shawlands, Govanhill, Strathbungo, Newlands, Glasgow’s West End and Milngavie all get a passing mention.
The Camorra (Naples) and a Serbian drugs cartel (based in Trieste) are the main protagonists.
The anti-hero is a tiny woman who strives to overcome her many problems, hoping to be repatriated to her previous life in Italy. This woman is forced to live a very lonely life in the shadows.
Eventually, she strikes using her drones to try to solve her problems and gain status in her Camorra family.
The person trying to solve the resulting mayhem is a driven policewoman striving to force her way into the higher echelons of Police Scotland
This tale is rather graphic and gory in places and may not suit all tastes.
May I suggest you give it a go for a few chapters and, hopefully, you might be hooked.
By my ready reckoning, this story has taken around a thousand hours to complete. With 140,000 words, it MUST contain errors for which I ask your indulgence. If you come across a glitch, use your best judgement regarding what I intended and proceed. Thanks.
Click here to download the PDF.
This is a story which started out on my iPad many years ago, during a holiday to Blackwaterfoot on the Isle of Arran, in the Firth of Clyde. While we were in Tenerife recently, I rediscovered it and decided it should be completed.
This tale is set in 1853. The Irish Potato Blight is rampant. There are no antibiotics to counter tuberculosis and similar diseases, often fatal.
From Blackwaterfoot a lone fisherman sets sail across the notorious North Channel to one of his favourite fishing grounds, twenty-five miles away off the northernmost coast of Ireland. Very soon he is engulfed by a huge storm.. . ..
With a few twists, this is a tale of romance and survival.
Why not give it a try? It might ‘hook’ you.
Click here to download the PDF.
This tale was inspired by a Writers’ Circus topic: Confusion
I find myself struggling with my mobile phone when using its tiny keyboard.
I’m fairly certain that some of my ‘transmissions’ fall into the wrong inboxes. SORRY!
So read on and take a peek into the lives of Ronnie and Ash.
Another Peoples’ Friend story, perhaps?
Click here to download the PDF.
This is a full length novel.
It is about a refugee trapped in a camp in Greece who makes his way to Scotland to do his best to establish a new life.
The major part of the novel is set in Edinburgh and Glasgow and I hope these locations will be realistically depicted and recognisable to some.
And:
This story has taken many months to write and will take several hours to read. I ask you to try, say, ten pages and see if it grips you. Thank you.
My thanks go to several of my regulars and especially to Evelyn Tingle from our Writers’ Circus group and Alan Menmuir who read and commented on my original version. Invaluable.
As with any self-edited larger piece of writing, this story MUST contain errors and typos. I ask for your forbearance. Should you spot these, please your judgment as to meaning and read on.
Click here to download the PDF.
This is a confection generated by a 10 minute flash fiction exercise at our November 2023 Writers’ Circus meeting.
The Topic/Title given was “What I can hear”.
Under pressure of this time limit, this is what came to mind.
Takes about two minutes to read.
Click here to download the PDF.
I hope this little piece of candy floss writing might amuse.
When we manage to find our way to Peebles via Carluke (not easy from the new M8 heading East), the opening sentence in the story applies to us.
Behind us to the North is the edge of the Glasgow-Edinburgh industrial belt and ahead, to the South are rolling hills and green fields filled with sheep, cattle and wind turbines!
I do like the song featured in the title.
Here is a YouTube link
https://youtu.be/Fjufjv4rH0s?si=Q4EoawQ9xVPzJ_vK
Click here to download the PDF.
This is another tale based on a conversation with my grandson Drew (aged 8).
The entire story as written is almost verbatim from a journey we made through heavy traffic.
I suppose part of my motivation in publishing it here is to provided a record for my sons Stuart and Craig and perhaps for my five grandsons in the future at a time when they might be interested.
If you are wearying, skip through the indented part and scan the dialogue sections alone.
Click here to download the PDF.
At a recent Writers’ Circus meeting, in accordance with our established routine, we attempted to write a readable story against a time limit of TEN MINUTES.
On my way to the venue at 103 Trongate in Glasgow, (we start at the civilised hour of 11.00 am), I witnessed an encounter of two glammed up ladies in their mid fifties. possibly heading for a coffee and catch-up session?
“Helloww, how are Yooou?”
“Oh, you know, Living the Dream.”
Evelyn, our usual Flash Fiction organiser, did not have a topic for us and I pitched my proposal.
Off we went!
Here is a tidied up and slightly and expanded version of my offering.
Click here to download the PDF.
This story came from a Writers’ Circus challenge on the theme ‘Harvest Festival’.
In the 1960s when I lived in Govanhill near the Synagogue in Bellisle Street (a tiny sanctuary now long closed), my Mum was the cleaning lady cum ‘manager’. This entailed the duty of opening the Synagogue for morning and evening prayers and quite often I would be delegated to perform the evening duty. At this time I was a late teenager with dark Beatle’s hair and a straggly beard.
The worshipers, mostly elderly men wearing long coats and felt hats, would arrive on foot in drabs and drabs hoping for a minimum of TEN men (a ‘Minyan’ (meen-yon)) to enable prayers and scripture readings to be performed at their evening ritual. Those who did not know me would scold my bare head with:
“YARMULKE! YARMULKE!”
In the autumn, in a tiny garden beside the Synagogue, they would build a (deliberately) flimsy structure, a shack-like tent where the worshipers crowded say prayers and sing unaccompanied to celebrate the Festival of Tents (Sukkot).
Armed with this memory, this story wrote itself.
More info at: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4784/jewish/What-Is-Sukkot.htm.
Click here to download the PDF.
This tale came from a Writers’ Circus challenge.
We were sent a copy of a photograph of a statue which stands at the entrance to Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA).
In this snap, the Duke of Wellington is Wellington astride his warhorse Copenhagen. On Wellington’s head he has a red and white traffic cone. Glasgow humour.
This image rattled around in my head until we arrived at Scone, Stirling in our caravan for a few days. We had hoped to go to Blair Atholl Caravan park but it was FULL due the the Blair Castle Horse Trials.
The story wrote itself.
Click here to download the PDF.