The battle-scarred city walls look on as we march in memory of those killed
by the soldiers who wore the iconic red beret.

But now, the heroes of Arnhem and Pegasus Bridge,
forerunners of these modern-day paratroopers, are stirring in their graves,
at the claim that the killers in British uniforms were only ‘Doing their duty.’

They rise up and march in unison with the souls of
Jack Duddy...

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My lady friend and I set out for a walk in the beautiful Trough Of Bowland,
that hidden area popularised in verse by Stan Siddlesox, the bard of Accrington,
whose childhood was spent in dreams of those distant peaks,
as told in his biography, From Cobbles to Stardom,
and whose father, like mine, is said to have exclaimed,

‘Oh, dear wife, I love him dearly, but by ’eck, we’ve reared an an ec...

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Claire decided to annoy her schoolteacher by swallowing a shoe,
then admitted afterwards that she’d felt a right heel,
’cos Miss Bluemantwit started to panic when Claire’s face turned blue.

However, she was reassured by the naughty pupil,
who, in a muffled voice, said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only a trick!’

But before the other kids could call for help, out came the undigestable item
which tu...

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As I gaze around that vast music hall, The Palladium,
I shout a fervent ‘Good luck!’ to my favourite singer, Miss Claribella Constance,
and am rewarded with a wave from behind the stage curtain.

I remembered when, as a young girl, a roving gypsy, Ma McDonogool, 
prophesied, ‘Her heart is full of high notes, yet I sense there is unfulfilled passion.’

As a teenager, I’d thought I was i...

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As I listened to Don Maclean sing American Pie,
I wondered, as he sang about those stereotypical
‘Good ole boys’, where they really that good,
when they all seemed to be drinking ‘whisky and rye’?

Well, I mused, it was an improvement on the usual 
musical fare I'd been reared on,
and wondered how the old folks would have coped
with being stuck in the parental home.

They had approved of...

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The Reverend Miss P, who for years had cheerfully warded
off the attentions of the men of her parish, invited me on one of her well-organised rambles.

Later I watched as she tucked into her lasagne in The Peckish Partridge,
a pub she insisted we go to, rather than that other hostelry, The Feisty Farmer,
which has, as she pointed out, ‘Pictures of busty women admiring a sweaty blacksmith,’
t...

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