I find this ABC Tales website a warm and welcoming community where writers of all abilities can share their work in the knowledge that it will be appreciated and encouraged. But what makes the site particularly special for me is that a close friend from long ago was a popular member here, regularly posting poetry and prose years before I joined. Julia Macpherson (ABC username Overthetop1 ) left this world far too soon, and at a point where too few had recognised the high standard of her writing talent. Following her death in 2016, her mother Coral (ABC’s seashore ) and her sister Sarah worked with Cerasus Poetry, and with the support of ABC members and the MIND mental health charity, to publish a compilation of her work. I lost touch with Julia in the mid-1980s, but found her again through ABC Tales and the pages of her book, Waiting For Another Velvet Morning .
Blue proddy shite
Posted on Sun, 29 Jun 2025
Dunno why but I thought of you a few times while I was writing it CM.
Read full commentPosted in Those Shameful Blue Pyjamas
Outlet Village
Posted on Fri, 27 Jun 2025
You've brought back memories Jenny. I remember shopping for shoes with my kids in the Swindon Outlet Village. We always had to stand and gawp at the big 'City of Truro' steam locomotive in the food hall for twenty minutes to keep my son happy as...
Read full commentPosted in The Sad Demise of the Plastic Triceratops
Palestine
Posted on Sun, 22 Jun 2025
There are many things that we should remember about Israel's occupation of Palestine since 1948, and about Britain's occupation of it for thirty years before that. But we don't. This problem is more than a century old.
Read full commentPosted in Fifty-One Empty Places at the Dinner Table
Hurt
Posted on Fri, 27 Jun 2025
These are brilliant words so filled with sadness. I'm very sorry that it's been necessary for you to write them and I sincerely hope the hurt subsides.
Read full commentPosted in This Sad Blister
Fighting fit
Posted on Fri, 27 Jun 2025
Yes Di, I'm absolutely tip top now. Many thanks for asking.
And I hope you're fit and well yourself.
Read full commentPosted in The Sad Demise of the Plastic Triceratops
Palestine
Posted on Sun, 22 Jun 2025
History twists and turns but I doubt there's ever been a reversal of circumstances quite like what we're seeing now. And we are seeing it now. We've no choice. It's everywhere we look.
I've tried to look away but I can't. I've read books...
Read full commentPosted in Fifty-One Empty Places at the Dinner Table
Glasto
Posted on Tue, 24 Jun 2025
There's little that can beat the atmosphere of a good music festival. I've been to a few but never Glastonbury. I used to go to the WOMAD festival every year near Malmsbury near where you live. It was all what they call 'World Music' which I love...
Read full commentPosted in Let Me Go Back
The Goddess of Death
Posted on Tue, 24 Jun 2025
I'm delighted to see how quickly you've acclimatised to life in Somerset Paul. I vaguely remember there being a pub in Taunton called the Goddess of Death. Their hemlock flavoured crisps are to die for.
Excellent writing! I eagerly await...
Read full commentPosted in Prophesy: The Immortal Witch (1)
Home á loam
Posted on Tue, 17 Jun 2025
Sitting in my shed and writing, I find, are the two great healers in life. I wish there was a light in my shed so that I could go there to write, thereby killing two earwigs with one stone.
I once read somewhere on the internet that...
Read full commentPosted in When Time Has Elapsed
Sleep
Posted on Sun, 22 Jun 2025
Thanks very much for your words Kilb50.
The good thing about not being able to sleep is that I don't have the nightmares.
Read full commentPosted in Fifty-One Empty Places at the Dinner Table
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