This is a tale based on fact from a long ago story.

It is set in Aberdeen at the height of the North Sea oil exploration boom in 1998.

Its memory was disinterred from my long-suffering memory cell when I was asked to set the

theme for our August story at Writers’ Circus.

I always have thousands of ideas for stories but caught unawares, I chose “Quandary”.

As frequently happens, I made several false starts on wildly different stories when this

one lit up and wrote itself, more or less.

My friends received it with modest enthusiasm and I edited to their comments.

I hope you enjoy it.

Mercifully short at around 4,500 words/ about 15 or so minutes to read.

This is a ‘true romance’ in which Bettina Tazzina (Betty Teacup) gets another outing!

My Mum (Betty Teacup) read stories like this endlessly, and by osmosis clearly I was affected.

Nothing here to frighten the horses!

Candy Floss. Go on, go on, go on!

(Hardened readers my recognise this as a re-worked and improved version (!!) of another tale from my early days.)

This tale has its roots in an chance encounter.

We were on holiday in New Zealand. We stood high above Hastings, at a Viewpoint. A very elderly, dapper gentleman joined us.

As we chatted he revealed that he was originally from England, that he had emigrated to NZ as a £10 Pom in the 1950’s, travelling by boat. He found a girl, made a happy life, although there had been no children.

Two years earlier, after a long illness, his wife had died.

He had been lonely, cast adrift, and haunted by the thought of an old flame, a girl he had once loved but lost to another man, someone he knew well, a rival.

The idea that this lady might still be alive, and perhaps open to an approach, nagged and nagged. Eventually he had hopped on a plane and returned to Blighty, to search for her.

This lady, now a widow of many years, was living alone, her children scattered around the globe.

“Did you hit it off, after all those years?” my lips blurted, as they do.

“Oh Yes. And she decided to come back with me, for a holiday.”

“Did she like it?”

“Oh yes, I think so, she’s still here, that’s nine months now. She’s sitting in the car, just over there, having a snooze.”

The genesis of this little tale was a ‘five minute challenge’ to warm us up, at a Creative Writing Class.

Initially it was only about the bad tempered surgeon abusing his ‘minions’.

But, when I revisited it much later, the Muse provided this other tale, about two nice people ‘finding each other’.

Get out your box of tissues!

My friend Sheila is keen on ‘Women’s Rights for Lady Golfers’. And so am I!

Her daughter-in-law Lindsey, now a full-time Mum, was until recently a Theatre Nurse.

This tale is for them.

And for my friend Brian of the Morning Papers, and for Richard my brother, both of whom have had recent triple by-pass operations, both ‘doing well’.

We were on holiday, in Rosemarkie, with our caravan.

Whizzing along in our car one day, I saw a sign advertising a “Car Share Club”.

I started to write this piece, with no idea what would come from the Muse.

This is a piece which has drawn criticism.

It contains dark material.

I defend myself by pointing readers to the nightly news.

In my mind, however, this story is a ‘true romance’, albeit involving strange bedfellows.

I spotted some anomalies and revised it in February 2016.