STOP PRESS Keith McClellan, a long time member of Aynho’s Writers’ Group, is now a published author! His book ‘The Bootlegger’s Widow’ is available in paperback and also on Kindle! The story is set in Cornwall in 1797. Recently widowed Martha Baines is defenceless against corrupt revenue man, Rawdon, and Richard Trewarren, heir to the…
UNFORGETTABLE Spring, following winter’s biting cold, Appeared at first reluctant to take hold. By stealth this year it came A lovely day, Then bitter cold And icy winds still kept shy spring at bay. Daffodils they waited so long For their chance to flower Only to be cut down within the hour By returning ice…
My Great Escape On the last day of the Paris conference, I bumped into someone I vaguely knew in the hotel breakfast room. “Have you heard the news?” this woman said in a smooth voice, a smirk curling round her lips. “A volcano has erupted in Iceland. The ash is heading down across the UK.”…
Dawn Griffis, formerly resident in Aynho and now living in U.S.A. has published her third book. Full details are available at www.dawngriffis.webs.com
Summers Past Of course, it wasn’t by choice that I landed up in the mental hospital. No one in their right mind would choose to go there. But at fifteen I needed a summer job because I wanted to buy a wireless of my own, and the local plastics factory wouldn’t have me. So at 8 o’clock one July…
Just In Case This is the story of a life distraught but not destroyed; a pageant played in sequence in the eyes of your imagination. So first imagine this; a rich evening of late summer. A spacious, gracious room whose windows open onto a garden terrace where in the afternoon the sun had warmed those…
1940s Oxfordshire I was born in Oxfordshire seventy years ago Into a rural idyll, where the pace of life was slow I used to roam the bluebell woods And walked through fields for hours With seas of poppies, ox-eye daisies And cobalt blue cornflowers I used to watch the skylark soaring in the blue Above…
Finding Charlie My father, Fred Smith, was born in 1900, the third child of a family of eight, five boys and three girls. Dad’s story, or fragments of it, came out over the years, supplemented by various members of his family, and it helped me to try to understand his treatment of my brother and me.…
Images in Red and Gold Late September shadows lengthen Summer’s sun begins to fade Dew descends on lawns and pasture Drenching every leafy glade Nature flaunts its flawless beauty Changing seasons’ gifts unfold Displaying trees in riotous colour Images in red and gold Jewelled ‘webs adorn the hedgerow Shimmering in the morning sun Harbingers of…
Winter Magic November’s winter gloom, lightened only by bonfire night with its smells of mulled wine and scorched blue touch paper, is an evocation of a childhood yearned for throughout our adult lives. Soon it will be Christmas. Thoughts of the approaching festive season fill our hearts with yet more nostalgia – memories that stay forever. With any…