London is full of echoes and shadows of the past. Sometimes this past was barbarically cruel towards those who were different. These poems are poems of remembering and healing.

I've drafted the novel 5 times now, and edited it twice. I think I need some fresh eyes on it now!

Although ‘Green Twining’ is set in the summer of 1985, Joe Coffin’s father, Sid, could easily remember the old times when the whole, icy cold winter was spent digging trenches by hand, back and forth across the fields.

The horizon was long and level and barely changed as young Sid moved slowly across the field, with just the odd, small, bare, winter tree breaking its horizontal ruler-straight line.

The far hedge of the field grew very slightly nearer with each heavy clod of clay dug from the...

Even painful memories usually contain the messages which can heal their symptoms. If we can come out of what we were supposed to learn from the experience (which is usually what a powerful person needs us to believe in order that they can remain unchallenged in their privilege) and instead – through contemplation – gain a more expansive view, the emperor’s new clothes can suddenly vaporise before our eyes. Then, without the distraction of all the emperor’s gold braid, we might suddenly...

In ‘Green Twining’ a ‘mysterious stranger’ sends Joe, the farmer’s son, a letter of introduction. And – for reasons probably not even known by the letter writer himself – it contains a strange story the letter’s author was told by their father. It is a story which Joe finds deeply disturbing and which makes him question who exactly it is he is about to welcome to Green Twining Farm as part of the impromptu folk trio his old school friend, Tim, is bringing together to perform later that summer...