In the autumn of 2012 we visited Soglio to meet up with our Swiss friends Stef and Pia Hagmann.

We stayed at a wonderful family run hotel. Those of you who have been to Switzerland may agree ‘everything there is perfect: scenery, people, food, trains, buses, shops, restaurants - just everything’.

One day during our stay, the peace of the Soglio valley was disturbed by a rescue helicopter. It circled for hours on end. We were advised people had been trapped on the high tops by a landslip.

In a nearby village, we visited a Museum which contained a prison. There was a reference to a Witch Trial.

These two elements provided the core for the story. It is set in the early 1800s. It involves a girl called Hannah Sugli who lives on an isolated farm above the village of Soglio and a man called Edward MacLennan, a Geologist from Glasgow University who makes a series of summer visits reseaching landsides. There is an odd boy called Ivan who is unable to speak. Ivan is clever and has a key role to play as the drama unfolds.

This is a work of fiction. In its first incarnation it was almost completed in 2014 then became in enmeshed in an editing backlog.

Over the last months of 2024 I revisited the 2014 version and that is what you read here.

I would classify this piece as historical, romantic fiction. It is a novella comprising 64,000 words.

This version has been self-edited using the “Read Aloud” feature in Microsoft Word.

Please be forgiving: if you find errors, misspellings, missing words etc, please make your own best judgement about what the story intends and read on.

(Tragically, in August 2017 there was a major landslide near Bondo, a few miles from Soglio, resulting in many deaths. The landslide travelled over 6.5 km.) Here is a YouTube link.

https://youtu.be/ACTfEspuZYc?si=631V0CdreRQg3Qba

Note: The format of the PDF now includes a Table of Contents which allows readers to navigate directly to Chapters.

My grateful thanks to Micael Mackenzie who created my website. He did this for me and hopefully, if I can master the how to do this and be able to amend other longer stories to include this feature.

This is a ‘future fiction’ story which I started around four years ago when my eldest grandson was about eleven.

There was a stage when Matthew used to make excellent sketches of spaceships, rockets, robots and ailiens, all full of fine detail.

I had hoped we might develop Trevvid’s story together and in doing so Matthew might illustrate it.

Like his father, Matthew has a talent for artwork. Maybe one day he will?

This tale is about three young people who use their friendship and special powers to resist the evil forces of Juuster, the demonic leader of the Kembelatti.

You will encounter lots of strange words and odd spellings. To help, there is a Glossary but I think you will soon get the gist of what is meant by these words.

do give it a go, please.

There are lots of little twists and turns which I hope make this tale readable and enjoyable.

And yes, this one has a happy ending!

Note: I have addded a Contents list which allows readers to navigate to each chapter.

This story crept into my mind while I was thinking about two friends who have had recent spells in hospital.

Apart from a two day spell in the Victoria Infirmary as a three-year-old to have my tonsils removed, I have been fortunate never to need hospitalisation. Long may this situation continue!

This short piece is purely from imagination.

Make a coffee and have a delve.

(This was previously called Pastures New.)

This tale arose from a Writers’ Circus challenge ---- “Autumn Leaves”.

In the years before the wide-spread use of contraceptives and vascetomies, infidelity leading to children born out of wedlock and ‘accepted’ by the marriage partner were much more common occurences than in modern times.

Or are they?

This piece came from a Writer’s Circus topic:

“Sandwiches.”

Mercifully, this is a shot story!

make yourself a coffe and give it a go.