In November, 1988, a crowd of around 20 000 cheered as the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, met Lech Walesa. He was a shipyard worker from the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk and leader of Solidarity, the independent Polish trade union movement. Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski had Thatcher’s car stopped before she reached the airport to board a Royal Airforce jet to London and presented her with a bouquet of flowers. ‘I came to see and to have a long talk with...

Celtic 2—1 Lazio. Celtic got lucky last night and I got unlucky, with my three quid bet on Christopher Julien to score the first goal, odds 40/1. Julien popped up with the winner on the last minute of the ninety. But there was still time for the Italians to fling players forward. Celtic held out. Prior to the nail-biting finale, with some stout defending, but for two wonder saves by Fraser Forster victory could and perhaps should have went to...

'...we made tea. Moth found a hairy wine gum in his pocket so we cut that in half.' The South West Coast Path stretches from Minehead in Somerset down to Lands End and back to Poole. 630 miles, a lot of steep paths.. I've only done teeny bits and taken the bus back home or gone to a Youth Hostel. (I love Tintagel Youth Hostel.) Raynor and Moth have are homeless. They are fifty and the farmhouse they've built from a ruined shell which is also...

I like Derren Brown which makes everything easier. As Billy Connolly said when people approach him they are usually smiling. Derren Brown doesn’t make me happy. You can only do that yourself and he’s not really sure that happiness exists, except as a transitory experience, a bi-product of something else. Derren Brown’s book reminds me of chap-books heroines in nineteenth-century novel, written by Jane Austen, who were, for example, always...

The weather and news may be bleak but ABCtales is full of life and energy! Another week of fabulous writing - thank you to all who have posted. Our picks this week both draw on the hidden depths of the domestic world. Story of the week goes to Noo with her two captivating portraits of loneliness and quiet lives behind closed doors. https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/involuntary Poem of the week goes to a wonderful autumnal concoction from Ed...

Welldescribed grit with bright sploshes of lyricism. Published in 1989 it describes a Brixton that is often unsafe. The storyteller fortifies his council flat with tons of metal, his pal has to butt a racist agressor in the stomach and run for his life and jump onto a bus. The characters are young,likeable, a group of friends, sometimes working at casual jobs at a time sometimes not. They have a lively energy. Some do creative stuff, at least...

It's been another brilliant week on the site, with lots of new members (a big welcome!) and some great work from our regulars. Story of the Week goes to Charlie77's 'Beauty'. Good horror is as much about the journey to the denoument as the end itself, and there's a lot more to it than just chills. This one has sadness, love and bewilderment, as well as a genuine freeze down the spine: https://www.abctales.com/story/charlie77/beauty Poem of the...

I am sitting in the front row of The Allan Park Church Hall in Stirling, Scotland. It is nearly 11am. Its nearly showtime. Beside me sit my fellow pitchers for Perfect Pitch 2019; Suzie, Libby, David, Anne, Dave, Elissa and Cheralyn. Selected from seventy submissions earlier this year, we have made it here on a wet Sunday morning from all over the UK and Ireland. We all sent 100 word pitches only, no details, nothing to indicate who we were...