This is a tale about two people who meet under unusual circumstances. Both of them are slightly odd, off beat.
The setting is a fictitious island in the Outer Hebrides.
It was started several years ago, sparked by a topic from the Writers’ Circus entitled “familiar”.
I like to think of it as a modern-day Peoples’ Friend story, the sort of story my Mum would have enjoyed.
Special thanks are due to my friend Kareth Paterson who spent many long hours editing this tale, contributing corrections and suggesting ideas which shaped the final outcome.
Click here to download the PDF.
This tale was written in response to a Writers’ Circus challenge, issued in April for May 2021 submission, just as we were being encouraged to ease ourselves out of our current LOCKDOWN.
It is a simple tale, whimsical, which seems to be one of my traits at present.
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This is a piece for the Writers’ Circus on the theme, “Dinner”.
It is largely dialogue driven and I fear Jeanie Devine’s contributions may be hard for some to decipher.
Sorry.
Otherwise, be assured, it has a nice happy ending.
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This is a lighthearted tale about an group of friends who are members of the Brillo Investment Club.
The piece was written in response to a Writers’ Circus challenge, “it’s only a suggestion”.
The Birllo Club is in the doldrums and Mrs Slyvi Newlands decides its time for a shake-up.
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At our Writers’ Circus group we were given the topic for January 2019 of “a new beginning”.
As often happens, after a period of cogitation, with time pressing, I began to type with no clear idea of where I was heading.
This story came almost completely as a block of words, as if it had been lurking in my mind for years. And no, it is not autobiographical.
In its first version as submitted to the group, it was clunky and one-sided, written dispassionately, as if the narrator and observer were two different people. Then Kareth my inspirational, long-suffering editor and friend, encouraged me to ‘go for it!’, supplying insights and corrections from a female perspective.
I hope you will not find it too explicit.
Click here to download the PDF.
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.
Click here to download the PDF.
This is a boy meets girl tale set in 1962/63 at the start of the Swinging Sixties.
The main action takes place in Benidorm, the new Costa Clyde of its day.
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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.)
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This is a further revised version of the original Trumped story.
The original was crafted long before we have been plagued by the man who has dominated the headlines over the last decade.
It is a romance, set in Glasgow of the late 1950s.
Louisa at our Writers’ Circus set us the challenge of “Betrayal”.
The idea of setting this story against a background of Greyhound Racing came at once. My Dad was a weekend gambler, not addicted, but he did enjoy Friday nights at Shawfield Stadium, which still exists as a Greyhound Racing venue.
The ambiance I am trying for is post-war Glasgow, seeking to contrast the gulf between the lives of rich (living in the grand mansions of Pollokshields) and poor (living in the Oatlands district, where my Dad was born).
I have re-formatted it and re-edited the original using Read Aloud in Word. If you a typo or logic error, please forgive, make your best judgement and read on.
Thank you Kareth for editing the original version all those years ago.
This tale is has been written under the pen-name of Bettina Tazzina, after my mother, who was often called “Betty the Tea Jenny”.
Her real name was Bettina, an aberration from my Grandmother.
“Tazzina” is a tea-cup in Italian.
My mother was a great reader of the “Woman’s Own” and the “Woman’s Realm”.
I hope she might have enjoyed this tale, had she lived in our times!
Go on, enjoy some Candy Floss! A little won’t hurt you!
Click here to download the PDF.