I’ve lived in the Scottish Borders for over thirty years, about fifty miles south of Edinburgh. We visit Edinburgh a lot and I couldn’t count how many times I’ve walked along Princes Street – usually on the gardens side as it’s (fractionally) less busy than the shops side. It’s a rather attractive setting – Salisbury Crags and Arthur’s Seat in the background, the castle and the old stone tenements of the Royal Mile towering over the sunken gardens, the Walter Scott monument (yes I’ve climbed it, several times), and the Art Gallery at the foot of the Mound. At the East end, Carlton Hill dominates the skyline, while at the West on one corner there is St John’s Church and opposite it a rather impressive red sandstone hotel. In December there is a Christmas Market and ice skating and at New Year the fireworks display in the gardens is a sell-out. During the festival in August, Princes Street and the Royal Mile buzz with street performers and stalls of every kind and every few yards someone thrusts a flyer into your hand for one of the hundreds of performances taking place in venues across the city.

What does all that have to do with Battenberg for tea?  There is one constant on  Princes Street whether the sun is shining or the rain is pelting down onto the pavements and only a handful of people scurry along, heads bent against the wind. The piper. Sometimes you will find one at the entrance to the gardens opposite Waverley Station, sometimes in front of the Art Gallery, but it is rare to walk along Princes Street and not hear the sound of the bagpipes swelling in the background.

Combine that thought with a little café near the foot of the Royal Mile, a shop sign I saw once for ‘the support of Indigent Gentlewomen’ (what a wonderful phrase) and a cake that I loved as a child, but which I don’t often see nowadays and the character of Jean was born; along with her economic problems and the rather sad and unintended consequences of the solution that her lawyer suggests.

For me that is often the way stories come about – a fragment here and a fragment there that put together make a completely new whole.

Battenberg for Tea is one of the few stories in the collection Dust Blowing and Other Stories that I’ve never tried to place anywhere, so this is its debut. Signed copies of the collection (UK only) can be ordered here. They are also available in both Paperback and e-book format via Amazon, Kobo, Nook, etc and bookshops.

Celebrity Staus

This story is also set in East Belfast, where I moved following my marriage.

We bought a three-storey terrace house which was quite up-market of its kind – in that at the front it had about four feet of concrete and a small wall separating our space from the pavement, rather than a door opening straight onto the street, as houses around the corner did.  At the back it had a traditional yard, possibly about 12 feet by 6, which opened onto a cinder lane. (Handy for taking out the bins.)

The story opens with the phrase It was a headline in the paper,  and it actually was a headline that first gave me the idea. At that time in Northern Ireland dogs had to be licenced,  yet there was no provision for exotic pets, however large or dangerous. And, famously, there was a precedent for someone keeping a big cat, though I’ve no idea what happened in that real-life case.

Looking out at our yard it was a very small step to speculating about who might want a tiger, and what the consequences might be. It wasn’t hard to imagine that it mightn’t end well…

At one stage I submitted this story to Radio Ulster for the 15 minute short story slot. The response was interesting – the editor who’d read it loved it but said that it wouldn’t get past the top person in London unless I cared to change the ending. I declined, so sadly what might have been my radio debut never happened and this story lay in the proverbial ‘desk drawer’ waiting for an opportunity to be used. This was the first story I’d written in the 1st person and the first time I attempted a very distinctive voice. It remains for the reader to decide whether I succeeded or failed.

It is now part of my new collection Dust Blowing and Other Stories, more information / signed copies are available here.

Afghanistan is a country that has fascinated me since I was about 8 years old. The vast open spaces, the austerity of the landscape, and the relationship of that area to ancient civilizations such as the Mogul Empire and the huge derelict cities of the plain captured my imagination.

Sadly I’ve never been there, to experience the amazing and often difficult terrain for myself, and probably, courtesy of the political situation, will never be able to. But I can go via the imagination and I hope that in Dust Blowing, set in modern-day Afghanistan, I can take my readers with me.

As for the story itself – it developed, as stories often do, out of a dilemma which the main character in Dust Blowing faces. And as often the case there is no easy answer. As there is no easy answer to the question it raises –  is there such a thing as mercy-killing, or is killing someone always murder?

I’d love to hear others’ opinions, both on the main question, and on the story itself if you’ve read it.

The collection is available via the following sites

and signed copies can be ordered direct by contacting me here or on FB.

Somehow I missed this one in my post yesterday – what has really surprised and delighted me is the breadth of the authors I’ve found myself alongside. Fun, if nothing else.

I wonder what tomorrow might bring…