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“I’m a murderer, see?” “Wasn’t it manslaughter?” “Well. . .” Gigantic Tony Clifford certainly looked like a murderer, with his huge muscular torso, shaven head and massive frame. The old-fashioned tattoo on his arm of a large anchor seemed somehow in keeping with our gloomy Victorian surroundings. Murderer or not, I found myself liking Tony…
“See these hands?” said the elderly man who’d introduced himself as George, holding up his fingers to show me. “These are killing weapons. The army made me sign a form to say that I’ll never get into a casual fight, because I couldn’t be responsible for the consequences. If I hit you I’d kill you,…
As the flames grew higher I saw the little girl in the upstairs window. She was waving frantically, banging on the glass. I had been walking along the road shell-shocked, stunned, still reeling after having had the biggest disappointment of my life. You see, during all the time that I was desperately fighting to break…
“Did you know him?” asked the nurse as we looked down at the dead man, seventyish Harry. In the grey early-morning light, the hospital ward with its bed-fuls of weary suffering patients, looked as dismal as I felt. I really didn’t want to be here. “Oh yes, I knew him alright,” I answered, feeling a…
“I’m leaving you, you pie-faced bastard! My mum was right about you, you are a useless, talentless waste of space. What did I ever see in you?” So saying, my girlfriend Sue, threw her cup of tea in my face and flounced out of my flat for ever. It had been an unpleasant period in…
“What’s the matter, mate?” said the man who came to sit next to me on the bench on the seafront at Brighton. Seagulls were swooping and diving and screaming above us, my headache was getting worse, and I was on the point of wondering whether to go to Beachy Head along the coast, climb to…
Last night I had that dream again. The one where I’m really thirsty, and a lovely glass of cold water is just beyond my reach. Or I’m ravenously hungry and there’s chicken and chips on a plate, but it’s yards away and I can’t walk. I suppose that’s what my life has become: a yearning…
Have you ever had a moment when you see someone of the opposite sex, know they’re the right one for you, but nothing comes of it? And you regret it for ever. It happened to me in 1973. I was young and carefree, enjoying an evening out at a folk music club, when my eyes locked…
“You must prepare yourself for the worst,” the doctor said, staring at us seriously. “You are aware that we can’t be sure of the outcome?” “But we know you’ll try your best.” Lynn’s mum could barely say the words before she burst out crying. It had been a tough twenty-four hours, and this was the…
I love working in a betting shop. I love the buzz, the excitement and the action, when you have to punch numbers into the computers, count out cash and listen to the sound of the racing results on the TVs all at the same time. But most of all I love seeing the smiles on…