La Force XI - Fortitude

So, for the Modern Alchemists exhibition 'Solve et Coagula', writers were paired up anonymously with local artists and asked to write a piece about their work. You can read my write up about the event on We Are Cardiff here.

I was lucky enough to meet my artist, Borja Perez Mielgo, on the day of the exhibition opening and he has given me the green light to put his work up here. He does not have a website yet but I'll keep you posted:

At first glance, there's a lot to take in. I allowed myself a while to think about it before I started and eventually decided to do a little research into the symbolism. I discovered that 'Fortitude' is a tarot card which commonly displays a woman and a lion as its motif, so continuing on this theme, I based my writing around the cards. And here it is:

Fortitude

She watched the colours fade from the card, they distorted and dripped; the hand, the numerals, the chain. When it was completely blank, she tossed it onto the fire. The corners curled and blackened before it succumbed completely to the embers.

Then it was gone.

She smiled.

She peered over the edge. There wasn’t much left of him now either, he had stopped squealing a while before. All she could hear was the Cuttlecrawlers drinking up the last of him, suckling and nuzzling like placated babies. The horns were always the last bits to go, the regurgitated intestinal fluids had a hard time eating through them, even with the help of the engorged tentacles. The sound of their snuffling and the wafts of their excited sulphuric burps tickled nauseatingly at her stomach. She could barely see the ground through the writhing mass of feelers, twitching and squirming languorously after their unexpectedly large meal. There wouldn’t be a bone left when they were done with him, nothing but a sour smell and a slightly scorched patch where the bile had burnt through.

She took another sip of her coffee and put the rest of the stack to one side.

The eagle incident had been unfortunate. Adelaide had been a good hunter and a fast flyer, supplying the group with a steady flow of rabbits. She had warned her about swooping too low over the polyp fields, but of course she was sick.

And young.

Her anti-Icarus.

She would miss her.

She opened up her satchel and took out the remaining cookies. Six in total; four raisin and two oatmeal. They wouldn’t last long, she had already gone over her allowance for that day but they had all needed it, what was left of her rag tag team. She had enough flour and butter for two more batches, provided she could find a safe place and some good wood for an earth oven. She liked to use oak, it gave them a earthy, smokey flavour. Cookies were a bit of a hassle to make but they travelled well, especially if she found some good munrom leaves to wrap them in.

She glanced at Captain. He had shrunk down to normal size again which was good, he would need less food that way. They wouldn’t be going anywhere until at least the morning and they were out of reach up there. She took swigged the last of her coffee; her fifth cup that day. She should really cut down but it helped sooth her post-battle jitters. She’d needed it even more after giving up the tobaccamon pipe, it gave her something to do with her trembling hands.

With a sigh, Captain uncurled and rolled onto his back, letting his heavy paws dangle in the air. He paddled them and twitched his ears occasionally, letting out huge snoring purrs which fluttered at his nostrils. He was probably dreaming of chasing wild pigs, she thought, or soaring through the celestial plains in pursuit of albatross. He loved albatross.

She cleared away the cooking stove, pots and pans, and added a little wood to the fire from the bundle they’d brought. She tipped the coffee mulch over the side, that would give the crawlers a buzz. She rinsed the cup and packed it back into the saddle bag and then pulled out her knife and looked at herself in the blade. She regarded her newly cracked tooth and the heavy circles under her eyes, the greasy hair and sallow skin. With a shake of her head she re-sheathed it.

It was best not to look.

She picked up the deck again and shuffled it, sliding the cards in on themselves over and over again. She smirked at how light they felt in her fingers. She was about halfway through with only a few Major Arcana left, she’d be glad to finish and go home.

She looked out over the landscape that the sun was scurrying to hide behind. When it was dark the Tartaran creatures would heave themselves out of their day-time holes, their pockets of night-time in the flood of light, and slither and creep in search of something soft, warm and beating. She would hear their low moans and heavy growls in an hour or so, the click of the palpitating mandibles, the desperate shrieks of a constricted meal.

Even the crawlers pushed themselves deep into the black crystal sand, twisting and coiling until their flaccid bodies were completely covered. If they felt particularly bold they would push up a tentacle or two up into the bitter night air and then snatch furtively at unsuspecting mice and golgors. Once caught, they’d hurry them into their warm lair beneath the onyx grains and gorge, trying to quieten their slurps and impatient gurgles. They’d pause mid-guzzle whenever anything heavy and terrible passed overhead, only daring to open all their eyes and breathe again once silence was restored.

They were safe up there though, she reminded herself, on that curious structure built by a people she knew nothing about, in a time that no one remembers. She wondered what the world would have looked like then, in the times before the Haze. Did they have any idea of what was coming, of what was waiting for them? There wasn’t much left of it anymore, just a few monoliths here and there and the strange stone arrangements swept up in the dust.

She looked down at the cards.

With her eyes closed she finished shuffling and arranged them in front of her, just as she had been taught all those years ago, piling them neatly and confidently until she had run out. In the dying light she took the top card from the spread.

With a deep breath, she turned it over and opened her eyes.

XII

The colours flashed: red, blue, yellow.

She regarded it for a moment before placing it in the inside pocket of her cloak and then stashed the rest of the pack in her satchel. She unpacked and unrolled the blanket, threw it over Captain and got in beside him, burying into his fur for warmth, his heavy sleep-breathing a comfort to her. She lay flat on her back and studied the emerging stars, but they provided no answers for her that night. The heavens remained tight-lipped for her. Instead, she rolled to look at the fire. Its licking and lolling felt warm on her face. She drew the blanket in around her.

The Hanged Man.

She would need to get some sleep.

 

 

The Upper Deep - horror short story

You can check out my foray into horror at the Cardiff Undead blog here!

It was inspired by this poem:

The Kraken - Lord Alfred Tennyson

 Below the thunders of the upper deep;
 Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
 His antient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
 The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
 About his shadowy sides: above him swell
 Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
 And far away into the sickly light,
 From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
 Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
 Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
 There hath he lain for ages and will lie
 Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
 Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
 Then once by man and angels to be seen,
 In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

And this book:

I'm sure you can guess the common theme;

Although there's not actually a kraken in it...

Literature Wales Poetry Workshop

So, on St David's Day we headed to Neath to attend a day of poetry performances and workshops funded by Literature Wales and Seren Books - all for £7!
Gillian Clark (The National Poet of Wales) also did a reading of some of her poems (two of which I absolutely loved) and a book signing.

Here's one of the poems that really moved me: Miracle on St Davids Day


I really enjoyed the day and it definitely inspired me to write more poetry.

I chose to attend a workshop by Rhian Edwards about bridging the gap between page and performance poetry. She gave us this exercise:

Think of an emotion, without naming it give it a (non-cliché):

• Colour
• Texture
• Smell
• Sound
• Effect on the body
• Animal
• Visual

(not necessarily in that order)

So this was mine:

It is a pearlescent sheen,

the scent of money,

it's copper smell,

a knot on smooth.

It trickles almost imperceptibly

a gradual waterboard.

It stifles and suffocates,

a gnawing worm, 

it's holes left gaping. 

 

 

(Answer at the bottom)

 

 

The next workshop was with Paul Henry and focused on writing from memory.

 

He encouraged us to fill a page with words and sentences inspired by the phrase, 'The first house I lived in'. We then read through the following poem together and then wrote our own inspired by it.

 

The Self-Unseeing by Thomas Hardy  

Here is the ancient floor,

Footworn and hollowed and thin,

Here was the former door

Where the dead feet walked in.

She sat here in her chair,

Smiling into the fire;

He who played stood there,

Bowing it higher and higher.

Childlike, I danced in a dream;

Blessings emblazoned that day;

Everything glowed with a gleam;

Yet we were looking away!

 

 

 

And this was mine:

 

 

 

Heol Y Coed

 

Here is the step where the dog sits,

stooping to peer through the clear, green frog

of the stained glass window,

an occasional eruptive bark,

pre-empting the doorbell.

Here is the bannister which I pushed my head through

and was stuck for what seemed like hours.

 

Here is the hall with its full length mirror,

which I cracked

with an ill-advised handstand.

Here is the kitchen door

through which I would listen to adult conversations

pyjama-clad after bed time.

It does little to blot out the noise.

 

Here is the kitchen table,

a stain or two from sodastream syrup.

Here is where they gathered en mass,

all high hopes and hair gel

before taxiing to town,

the dog's head left smelling of aftershave,

from many different hands.

 

Here is the garden,

with its lavender-lined patio.

A badminton net traversing the pre-chained daisies.

Here is the quince bush, heavy with

fat bumble bees

and crammed with owl and pussycat fruit.

 

Here is where we buried the guinea pig,

which the dog then dug up

 and brought inside.

 

 

 

The answer to the first poem was....envy!

Mug.0

If you walk down the street with a mug, people look at you like you're bloody crazy.

It upsets people, it makes them nervous. You can see them feverishly glancing round for a building site, a need to placate the uneasiness of the aforementioned mug  being out of the household parameters by placing you as a builder. It's ok to drink from mugs outside if you're repairing someone's roof or replumbing a kitchen.

But no, there is no building site - not even any light renovation or some gentle landscaping. The ensuing judgment is swift and damning. There's only one thing for it, you must be mad.

You see them whispering as you approach, mug in hand, taking an occasional furtive look in your direction. They stop as you pass lips compressed together, holding tight onto their handbags, eyes diverted, before resuming once again when you're at a safe distance:
"Did you see the size of the mug he had?"
"I know, I don't feel safe on the streets anymore."




Don't pretend you didn't have one of these

And I'm not just talking about any mug, I mean the big, ceramic, chipped, faded, got-free-with-an-easter-egg type of mug. It may be emblazoned with 'World's Best Dad' or 'Diamond Jubilee 1952-2012' or be one of those brown Smarties ones that every household seemed to have in the 90s. Something with a big handle and stir marks in the bottom, something that's been with you through three house moves, it's origins lost completely in the sands of time.

But the important thing is the confidence with which you carry it. Here you are, walking the neighbourhood sipping a brew, you're a Kenco flaneur, a Lipton lounger, a Tetley stroller. You don't care, you've got the streets at your feet and a cup of the good stuff in your hand. Never mind those who stare, who judge, who comment; they don't get it. They don't get that pushing the boundaries of domesticity can be liberating, exhilarating, intoxicating.

You should leave those haters in your coffee infused wake.

I sometimes wonder if there's a limit, a Mug.0 ,where the normalcy restrictions have been pushed too far. An invisible barrier at about 100 metres circumference from your house that marks the end of public mugging, indecent mugging, mugging with attitude. If you dare to venture far enough to cross it, the mug will be whisked out of your hand, go flying over your shoulder, zip down the road, careen straight through the sitting room window and smash straight into the splash-back above the sink.

Of course, you'd wear it as a badge of honour, this brewed Jackson Pollock, this caffeine-imbued abstract homage. It shows that you stared the mug-limits right in the face and laughed wildly. You've conquered Mount Olympus, you've knocked down the doors of Valhalla, slammed your  'I survived the monkeys of Longleat' mug down on the table and said:


They would really benefit from a mug or two

"That's right! I choose to drink my refreshing and invigorating hot drink out of a vessel whose handle I can actually get my fingers through and won't burn the shit of my hands even with the cardboard surround. And if you've got a problem with that, you've got a problem with me. Capiche?"
You defied any of them to complain. They didn't.

The Beverage Gods tremble at your feet.You have overcome.

So next time you fancy an alfresco tea, a coffee on the move, a hot chocolate in the park, throw off your convention-shackles, pick up your mug and damn well take it outside. Hell, maybe take a Hobnob or two along, really shake things up.

Go on, just try it.

Cocktales

Cocktales

 

The Bangkok Sling

2 parts Necessity

1 part Unsure Approach Tactic

1 part Jet Lag

A dash of Age Related Social Anxiety  

I go for a two-seater, somewhere near the edge, placing my bag on my lap. I scan the room with a forced nonchalance.  Everyone else is sitting with someone but that’s to be expected. I’ll have that soon enough.  

I get my book out, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It contrasts magnificently with my surroundings and also acts as a friendly reminder that some people will slit your throat for absolutely no reason. It’s nice to keep that in mind, when travelling alone.  

I take a sip of my Chang and tuck into my Pad Thai, taking in the cultural sights of Koh San Road – the ping pong shows, the beer towers, the sweaty tourists and the tuktuk drivers that will fleece you without a second thought. Just yesterday I saw a mystic man spit into a girl’s mouth. ‘Healing’ he called it, she didn’t seem to agree.  

I lay down my chopsticks and wonder if I have any bean sprouts stuck in my teeth. I light a cigarette, at a pound a pack it’d be rude not to, and let my eyes roam. Those three look alright but they look a bit German, I don’t want to embarrass myself with a language barrier, I keep looking.  

Right, there’s two there. They look nice, and they’re laughing.  And they look English, a bit Essex in fact. Nice teeth, apparent low inebriation level, high approachability, they’re a definite maybe. I finish my drink and head to the bar, skirting perilously close to them to see if they speak English.  

It’s a yes.  

Drink in hand, on the way back from my recon fly-by, I look at their shoes. Shoes are very important, they tell a lot about a person. Let’s see, flip flops and those weird fabric shoes that seem to be in fashion. It’ll do. At least they’re not wearing Crocs. 

Ok, now for the approach. If one of them smoked then I could just ask for a light, the perfect, text book ice breaker.

But no. Healthy bastards.  

I remind myself how I need to meet friends and construct a solid mental image of myself, reading alone in my hotel room. I can only carry so many books. As I mentally count down, I do a final bean sprout check and wipe the sweat off my top lip. 

Three, two, one.

Go.

Serve over ice in a highball, best garnished with a Marlboro Light.

 

 

The Vietnamese Bus Bomb 

2 parts Ridiculously Long Journey

1 part Suspected Dysentery

1 part Reduced Melanin

A splash of Ill-Advised Hareem Trousers 

I climb back into my bed, tucking my newly stamped passport into my money belt. I can’t stretch out of course, anyone over 5’8 is viewed as a giant round here.  We all have our crosses to bear. Mine is an energetic local woman who keeps flicking my face with her hair when she leans over me to adjust the curtain with her umbrella. Something she likes to do a lot. We’ve been on this bus for sixteen hours already, imodium-ed up the eyeballs and rapidly losing patience. 

We’re all pushed into a corner of course, the foreigners. The one nearest to the toilet and furthest away from the fire exits. I was woken up last night by a mouse crawling in my hair, no doubt trying to get at my curry-crab flavoured crisps. As I tried to get back to sleep I watched a large cockroach sauntering across the head rest in front, it paused to pose, silhouetted heroically in the moonlight.  

Suddenly, from the front of the bus comes a commotion. The driver is heading straight for us, ‘the white corner’, gesticulating insanely and pointing at each of us in turn. We look blankly at each other, and then at him. He gets louder. Other passengers around us begin pointing at us, then the border, then at us. It makes no sense.  

He starts pulling us from our seats. We climb down, file out of the bus and stand there in the dust. Then, with no warning, the door closes and he drives off. All of about twenty metres over the border. Then, he opens the door, pokes his head out and starts screaming back at us, motioning for us to get back on and cursing us in Vietnamese for jogging too slow. We get back on the bus and squeeze back into our seats.  

The bus drives on.

Serve in a martini glass with a slice of lemon and a selection of brand-name Loperamide.

 
 

The Skinny Dipper

3 parts Banana Leaves and Tamarind

2 parts Dutch Courage

Top off with Drunken Camaraderie 

I don’t know quite how it happened, but I remember that I was definitely naked. Definitely naked in a group of naked people, in a river, somewhere in the Thai jungle. And there was massaging going on, I remember massaging. 

There are chickens underneath the hut, I can hear them squabbling and scratching in the dirt. The morning light sticks its pudgy hands in between the slats, pawing at my eyelids and shoving its fingers up my nose. 

Oh God.  

It must’ve have been that stuff we were smoking. ‘Banana leaves and tamarind’ the villager told me. Banana leaves and tamarind, my arse. I look through the open doorway (there is no door) down to the river. I can see our guide down there, talking to the villager and his wife. They’re laughing. Probably about us. 

I try to piece it together. Everything was normal up until that point, ‘banana point’. We had completed the second day of the hike, had a refreshing swim in the river and eaten a sumptuous meal of rice and mayonnaise. We were getting to know our hike-mates – the hot French girl, the German loner, the weird Belgian doctor and his wife and the rest of them.  

It had all gone so wrong.  

I reach for my suitably ethnic, tie dyed handbag and fumble for my camera. The start-up tune slides drawing pins into my pitifully dehydrated brain. I flick through the pictures. Oh yes, here they are, nestled tumour-like after photos of elephants and waterfalls.

Skinny-dipping; I never learn.

Serve Clothed. 

 

The Vang Vienger

1 whole Cunty Gary

2 parts Alcohol Induced Lust

1 part Aphrodisia

A splash of Regret 

After walking for about an hour we eventually find the hospital, nowhere near where we were directed by the last two people we asked. There are plastic garden chairs lined up outside, full of women fanning themselves in the heat, a baby attached to a descending nipple. They stare openly as we pass.  

We mount the steps by the main entrance and kick off our flip flops, pausing to read the signs in broken-English.  

We head towards the pharmacy. 

 “Fucking cunty Gary and his cunty mate. He wasn’t even any fucking good.”

We walk through ward after ward. I’m limping from when I fell through the floor of the bar a few a days ago, the A4 sized bruise hidden under my ever-faithful hareem trousers. We find the pharmacy and approach the window, trying to keep our voices down.  

“I had unprotected sex last night,” whispers my companion, “and I need the pill.” 

We are met with puzzled faces. The nurses here are used to seeing Westerners with injuries, normally broken arms and slashed faces from tubing escapades, with the odd alcohol poisoning and drug-induced stupor thrown in for good measure. They look us up and down.  

She’s floundering. I take over. I point at her.

“No condom,” I say. 

More nurses come to join the confusion. They converse in Lao as I hold my hands under my ribs, and then push them out, imaging an air pregnancy.

More muttering. 

I cross my arms as if cradling a baby. “No baby,” I say. 

A crowd is gathering. It’s getting desperate.

Time for the big guns. 

I hold out my left hand, forming a hoop with my thumb and forefinger. With my right, I extend my index finger. Taking a side-long glance at my red-faced mate, I begin to slowly move my finger towards the hole. The audience watches in anticipation. 

It enters. 

I go in and out a couple of times, quickening in pace to build up the momentum, before signifying the shivering crescendo by jamming my finger to the knuckle and making a raspberry sound with my mouth. I point at my friend (somewhere in the ovary area) and then do the baby cradle again, “No baby”, I say. 

They converse again.   

“Ahh!” one shouts, “The after-morning pill!”
“Yes!” we reply, “The after-morning pill!”  

Embarrassed sniggering and a couple of high fives all round, to commemorate a job well done. 

The crowd disperses. They give us the pill. 

For a mellower version, serve in a low ball with a side of Over The Counter By a False Name Tramadol.

 

Slippery Crabber

2 parts Flor de Caña Rum

1 part Vegetarian Smugness

½ a measure of Peer Pressure

A dollop of Bioluminescent Algae 

“I couldn’t possibly,” I reply, “I’m a vegetarian.” I’m flooded with an image of myself on my high horse, meadow flowers braided into my hair, looking down at the smiling woodland creatures through my iridescent glow.  

I wonder if the guys I’m talking to get the same effect.  

Nevertheless, I help collect driftwood for the fire and give up my pocket knife for the good of the group. We’re already a bottle of rum in, it took longer than we thought for the tide to go out.  

As night falls, we pick up our flip flops and head over to the reef, dragging our feet through the phosphorescent algae in the shoreline. We keep looking back to see our foot prints written in starlight. Those of us on acid find this quite overwhelming.  

 We only have a few torches between us, so we stick together, drunkenly belting out a rousing rendition of ‘I Drove All Night’ by Roy Orbison. We reach the rocks and begin to scramble over, those of us with knives clamping them between our teeth. Then, we gather into a group and assign pairs. I nominate myself the official torch-holder.  

The hunt begins.  

He goes only for the big ones, stabbing them neatly in the middle of the shell and flicking them into the saucepan I’m holding. I replace the top each time to stop them crawling out. I found the first few quite upsetting. Poor little buggers. 

But as it goes on, I get more and more into it. The thrill of the chase has awoken previously repressed primal instincts. I can smell their fear. After about fifteen minutes, I turn into the ultimate hunter, scaling rocky outcrops and seaweed covered rock pools to find the biggest. 

“Here’s a massive one!” I scream, “Hurry up! Stab it! Fucking stab it!”, as the doomed crustacean tries to jam itself into a too-small hole, its spindly little legs paddling uselessly at the wet sand. Take that, you crabby bastard.  

It wasn’t until we made our way back to the fire, with our saucepans full of our pelagic bounty, did I feel any kind of remorse. As I watched them sizzle on the grate, lined up claw to claw next to their fallen comrades, I was overcome by shame. We had orchestrated and carried out a mass slaughter. They had never even seen us coming.  

I never knew I had such bloodlust in me.

Lightly dust brim of glass with some Fraudulently Obtained Pseudoephedrine. Serve on ice.

Cardiff Alms

The Monico 

We are gathered here today in remembrance of a lady dear to all our hearts, who has now been demolished and turned into luxury flats.  

I remember when it happened. After years of darkness she sat blinking in the sun, her back wall ripped out exposing row upon row of faded red seats. Through the lesion I could see her sleepy projector window clouded with glaucoma, and her set of centre steps which now just led to nothing.  

Unfortunately, it wasn’t done with any kind of decorum. It was as if someone had bent her over, lifted up her brown and yellow skirt and showed her big granny knickers to the world.  

And that was that, the heavy velvet curtains drawn on the days of Saturday cinema, the screechy Wurlitzer organ and the parade of birthday children. The credits had rolled on the excitement of seeing the stern-faced, Mr Monico in the foyer and the nomination of who was going to ring up the answer machine to get the timetable. 

Her carpets were sticky with generations of ‘not to be sold separately’ cans of coke, kernel-heavy popcorn and overpriced Revels. “Keep the floor neat beneath your feet”, she’d say, “Refreshments are available in the lobby,” and then serenade us with the ‘Pearl and Dean’ theme tune. 

She was a place of playdates, first dates and Beauty and the Beast. Not to mention burgeoning romances and first-time teenage fumblings. I distinctly remember a man smoking in there once, big puffs billowing up through the projector beam. My mum was too polite to say anything. 

Mr Monico came through my brother’s till in Tesco a few years after, and he was surprised to learn that his name wasn’t Mr Monico at all, it was in fact, Mr Bull. He looked genuinely upset when he later informed me of this.  

And so, with a heavy heart, we say goodbye to this Disney sympathiser, Titanic trader and Star Wars supplier. 

We’ll miss you. 

 

The Cabin

Roald Dahl referred to the sweet shop in Boy as ‘the very centre of our lives.  To us, it was what a bar is to a drunk or a church is to a Bishop.’ And I would hasten to agree.  

What The Cabin brought us, with her little round windows and moss-green roof tiles, was a haven. She was the communal grandmother, the saccharine reward to keep me still in church that became a Sunday ritual. 

With my pocket money burning a hole through my ladybird purse, I would count out penny sweets into the paper bag, pondering over my selection. Kola Kubes, Millions, Sherbet Lemons, Milk Bottles, Flying Saucers, Lemon Bonbons; all were scrutinised and mulled over. Not just anyone got in.

Once, the man behind the counter informed me, to my horror, that I was one penny short. He winked at me and told me not to tell anyone, handing over the corrupted bag with its nefarious stash. I reached up and took it, awe-struck. I couldn’t believe he’d put his neck on the line just for me. There and then I made a solemn oath that to my dying day, I would not reveal this treacherous debt. As soon as I got home, I hid the incriminating sweet bag in the back of Noel, my zip up monkey, and took from it furtively.  

She’s a chiropractic clinic now, the Cabin. They tore out her wooden shelves, shelves which used to hold jar upon jar of tooth-rotting bribes and sticky enticers, to make room for treatment couches. They lino’d over the wood and white-washed her walls. Now people go there to get their backs cracked and joints adjusted.  

It just doesn’t seem as fun.

May she rest in peace.

 

The Bandstand

A friend to the people of Cardiff and to Bon Jovi, the Bandstand was a man to be trusted and depended upon. He the meeting place for countless people over numerous generations. I myself used to wait for friends with him, in the days before mobile phones, when we just made solid plans. I also spent most of an afternoon with him once, queueing to meet the Super Furry Animals in Virgin Megastore. There was an awkward picture of me in the Echo the next day, clutching my newly signed copy of ‘Rings Around the World’ and looking like, as I did for about a year, the oldest one from Hanson.  

“I’ll see you there at eleven”, we’d say, carefully timing our phone call to try to avoid the embarrassment of having to speak to one of our friends’ parents. I’d only had the five minute window of when my mum chucked my brother off the dial-up so I could use the phone. “You should get outside more”, she’d tell him, brushing back her perm and adjusting her massive glasses. So, bang on eleven we’d turn up in our hippy skirts and Gwen Stefani bindis, skirting the Goths which congregated on him to smoke.  

He supplied a familiar facade, a destination to aim for. He was reliable and stalwart, a permanent fixture. And then one day, he was gone. It happened so fast it was over before I’d even acknowledged it.  

They paved over his uprooted foundations and twisted his ribs up through the concrete to make bike racks.  

 People walk over his grave every day and have no idea he was ever there.  

 

Rhiwbeina Infants

I am happy to see so many of her friends here today, and I’m sure many of you will remember her with the same fondness and affection as I do.  

She had been my first teacher. She had stuck star stickers on my recorder and taught me how to write my name. She was there the time I forgot my vest and had to do PE with my dress tucked into my knickers, and when Sophie peed herself during assembly and I had to keep shuffling further and further back to escape the spread.  

She had sympathised with me when I was sick all over her parquet floor (in my black and white stripy jumper) and the time I was caught drawing pencil stars on the desk (wearing the cursed flowery dress which I refused to wear ever again). I was made to wipe them off with the entire class standing around the table watching, my face hot and red.  

“You missed a bit,” said Chloe, which was ludicrous, as she had drawn just as many stars as me. In fact, she had drawn the first.

It was that moment that I realised that there was no justice in the world.  

It was a sad time, the night she burnt down. I was there myself, watching her impromptu pyre from the fence, bundled up in my snowflake dressing gown and wellies. I remember feeling the heat on my face and the cold autumn air on my back, like ice cream and warm chocolate sauce.  

We stood in silence, the whole street, the dead air punctured by a steady crackle and the occasional muffled crunch. Her immolation was hard to watch. I thought of all the ‘mummy and daddy’ crayon drawings and the painted hand prints that were now reduced to just spiralling embers.  

But she lives on through us. I have many fond memories of her, which I’m sure you all do too. She was a teacher to us all.  

 

Zeus

It is with great sadness that I stand in front of you to remember the life of Zeus. He was a brother, a father and a friend, not to mention a matchmaker and a pretty damn good dancer. 

For me, he bridged the gap between childhood and adolescence, a neon lantern in the dark no-man’s land of the first few years of high school. Through his under-sixteen nights he taught me about boys, about wearing heels and the importance of keeping your head up during a foam party.  

We’d queue round the block for an hour or so, girls on one side, boys on the other. The doormen would check our pockets for cigarettes and our bags for booze. I never tried to sneak anything in, I was far too much of a goody two shoes. One time, the woman on the door gave me an odd look when she reached into the pockets of my denim jacket and found them packed to the brim with sanitary towels. My mum said I only needed to take one, two at the most, but I always was paranoid about stuff like that.  

Once inside, we’d totter up the stairs in our super cool wedged sandals and pedal pushers and immediately cluster in a corner. We couldn’t believe what some of the girls were wearing.  

After scoping it out a bit, and getting the obligatory group photo taken (that’s three pounds each, you can pick it up on the way out), we’d make our way over to the dance floor. He’d always play the 90s favourite, ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’, which was always, always followed up with ‘Mambo Number Five’. We’d always dance in a circle, not daring to put our handbags down after our parent’s stern warnings: there could be kids from Cantonian here.  

Although someone now stands where he once stood, he’ll always be special to us. He was the platform for our first foray into adulthood, showed us what it was going to be like from there on in, taught us what it was to be big.

And for that, I thank him.