A Parrot Tale
Quackie the parrot has been my companion and my inspiration now for well over 20 years. However, I have only just found out why African Grey parrots are grey with a red tail: “In the impenetrable forests of Gabon, a story is told that, at the creation of the world,...
Serial-House-Guest Season
“They had a friend, she said, a certain Judy, who she termed as a Fair-Weather Visitor, one of the worst kind of visitors in her opinion. Judy would never come to stay out of season unless she saw on her weather app that a period of hot winter sun was...
The Literary Agents I Never had
There was the agent—a woman—who spoke with a lisp and looked at me as though I was the scum of the earth. To her I was a stupid upstart who no doubt thought I had written the novel of the year. Before she even saw me at the writers’ conference, she had decided to put...
Mr. Avery Times Two
Janet’s Archives. St. George’s Junior School, Notting Hill Gate, London, 1960. In Class 3A, we were taught—all 39 of us—by two brothers called Mr. Avery and… Mr. Avery. Now, I have to ask. Were there really two Mr. Averys, or was there only one, who wore different...
Teeline
Pre-university, I signed up for a course to learn Teeline shorthand and improve my typing speeds. This was a superbly clever move on my part designed to help me get better paid jobs in my university vacations. Except that… when I used Teeline in my first week at...
Clutter
My grandmother had everything I ever needed. On her table… a magnifying glass, a copy of Webster’s Dictionary, the newspaper open at the racing page. My words to my grandmother were, ‘Have you got...?’ She always had… got. She kept everything: little pieces of satin...
Twins
As a child, when my Uncle Frank was accused of doing something he shouldn’t have done, he explained that the wrong-doing had been committed by his trouble-making brother, who was his identical twin. Frank had two brothers and one sister. However, he did not have an...
School Dinners
The dinner ladies at the Fox Primary School and St. George’s Junior School, Notting Hill Gate, had to be satisfied that we’d made a decent effort to finish our school ‘dinner’. Only then did we get our ‘pudding’. One of our number, who was very smart, expertly...