My story begins the night Heathcliff, that handsome literary invention of
one half of the Bronte sisters, popped his head into my tent above Withins Moor,
saying, ‘Budge over, she’s kicked me out.

‘I’ve been carousing at The Sleepy Shepherd, with my creator Emily,
but her sister Charlotte turned up, and she don’t half like her pints of stout.’

Filled with fear at this apparition, I hastily decamped to Oxenhope
with its historic trains, from where I steamed along the Worth Valley,
imagining those cinematic Railway Children leaping from the pages
of Edith Nesbitt’s novel, at the quaint Oakworth station.

Feeling nostalgic I then headed for Stoodley Pike,
with its monument standing like a sentinel, which I –
in a glorious summer long ago during which I'd
smashed PBs at athletic meets – had once raced over,
using my speed over the weather-beaten Pennine rocks,
my father – a hospital chiropodist, taking a break from
disinfected wards and corny feet – cheering
me on in Todmorden Harriers’ fell race on a balmy summer night.

But now in my senior years I can ​​​​only think about the past,
along with my unheralded guest, who’s now back at my tent,
stinking of ale and unwashed socks.

He’s a true restless spirit, floating around waiting for love letters and forget me nots.

Then, after ‘Heathy’ woke screaming for the umpteenth time,
I asked, ‘Can’t you see a therapist?'

‘Therapy has limited success,’ he replied, ‘you told me so yourself.

That night I visited the Sleepy Shepherd to meet Heathy,
who was due to fly over on an angelic flight.

As I walked in, Kate Bush’s hit song filled the pub with its haunting air,
and we sang along to her beautiful ballad, Wuthering Heights.

‘I’ve always loved that song,’ I said to the bar man,
who looked at me, saying, ‘Don’t I know you?’

‘Weren’t you a psychiatrist at our mental hospital, Stoodleyview?
There was a rumour you, left under a cloud.'

But Heathy saved my embarrassment, as he declared,

‘Oh, there you are! I wanted to say thanks for encouraging me to sort myself out...
Oh, and for washing my socks.

‘I’ve made it up with the ghostly Brontes, and am attending a
writing class called Paradise Write Aloud.’

‘There’s a load of literary geniuses helping – Conan Doyle,
of Sherlock Holmes fame, and Josef Conrad, you know, Heart of Darkness,
The N Word Of The Narcissus?

'They’re a sort of charitable collective, helping spirits with a literary bent.

‘I’m going to become a ghost writer, and I’ll be haunting your dreams again, if not your tent.’

Seeking to escape I sought the juke box and Kate Bush’s lovely lyrics.

Ordering a whisky, the bar man commented, ‘I remember, you were a big drinker
and kept some funny company.'

I replied, ‘Well, I’ve always been partial to spirits.’