Inkerman Writers
a showcase of our work
Talking book candidate
OVERHEARD
They obviously thought I was asleep because they hardly bothered to keep their voices down.
Dad started...
“Well, did you tell her?”
“No. I couldn’t face it”
“Well she needs to know”
“Yes, I’m well aware of that, but, well, I didn’t know how to put it. It never seemed like the right time, and anyway, it doesn’t have to be me. You could tell her.”
God, what on earth were they talking about? ‘Her’ was obviously me, and it sounded serious. School maybe? I’m in trouble, work not up to scratch? Nonsense, I would know, anyway dad was talking again.
“We should sit down, the three of us, and talk it through properly.”
Damn, a family conference. It must be bad. Illness? Cancer? I’m only 15 and I’m going to die! No, that’s ridiculous. It’s dad, no mum, she’s been tired lately. She’s got cancer and they haven’t told me.
Mum continued...
She’s going to be furious. It’s such a massive deal. Her life will be turned upside down.
Ok, so no-one’s dying. Then what the hell was going on? They can’t face telling me, I’ll be furious and it will change my life.
Oh Jesus, they’re splitting up, when did things get that bad? Have they been keeping things going for my sake?
Then I heard dad.
“You never know, she might even quite like the idea.”
“Doug get real”
Well that rules out splitting up. I’ve got it. Dad’s going to work abroad. He’s always talking about going to China, or the States. I’ll have to leave my school and all my friends and move away with them.
Mum’s voice drifted upstairs again.
“She’ll think we’re bloody fools, that’s for sure”
“Well then she’d be right ay?”
Right, I give in. I’m lost.
Then mum added.
“Anyway, whatever happens, she mustn’t be the last to know so we’ll tell her tomorrow. No excuses!”
Right, I made my mind up to go downstairs and have it out with them there and then...and then
“Oh Doug, what will her friends say? They’ll think it’s such a joke, she’ll be so embarrassed. I can just hear them all now. Ellen’s parents are still ‘doing it’”
Doing it! What kind of doing it? Not ‘doing it’ ‘doing it’ My parents are in their fifties, they can’t still be ‘doing it’
And what’s that got to do with...
OH MY GOD!
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About
DfC
The Inkerman Writers are members of Darlington for Culture (DfC), which was set up in 2010 to help save Darlington Arts Centre from closure.
Its members include representatives of arts and community groups.
DfC was established after the centre’s owner, Darlington Borough Council, announced that budget cuts meant that it would have to withdraw its subsidy from the Arts Centre.
Although the centre closed, the organisation remains active - more at www.darlingtonforculture.org
Publications
Welcome to the site created by the Inkerman Writers to showcase our work.
Based in Darlington, North East England, and having celebrated their tenth anniversary in 2013, members have enjoyed success in a variety of arenas, including winning, and being shortlisted and highly commended, in short story competitions, having novels published and publishing the short story anthology A Strawberry in Winter, which can be obtained by visiting the website www.blurb.com
The group's second anthology of short stories, Christophe's Farewell and Other Stories, can be obtained, cost £4.95 plus postage and packing, from
The Inkerman Writers’ latest book, Out of the Shadows, which was launched as part of the 2013 Darlington Arts Festival, is on sale. The book can be ordered direct from
http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/4204019-out-of-the-shadows
The group also produced The Last Waltz, a double CD of short stories, available by contacting deangriss@btinternet.com, cost £5 plus p and p.
Several of our writers wrote original one-act plays in a collaboration with the Green Theatre company, which were performed at Darlington Arts Centre early in February, 2012.
Darlington-based Inkerman Writers have produced their latest anthology of short stories, Inkerman Street, based on the demolition of a fictional northern street and the stories of the people who lived in it.
The book, which features a variety of stories ranging from horror to comedy, was launched to a large audience at the Darlington Arts Festival Literary Day on Saturday May 26 and begins like this:
“Inkerman Street is still and graveyard-hushed tonight, the terraced houses cold behind boarded-up windows, silent sentinels among a sea of wasteland. No one lives here now and tomorrow the bulldozers will move in to flatten the houses to make way for the Council’s Grand Plan.
“Although the people are long gone, the houses still have life. Peek into one of the bedrooms and see on the wall a painting of a seaside scene, brightly-coloured boats bobbing in the harbour, fishermen pipe-smoking in the noonday sun and seagulls wheeling high above the choppy waters. In the roaring silence of the night, you can hear the screeching of the birds and taste the salt air, acrid and herring-sharp at the back of your throat. It is an illusion; the bedroom is empty and the blooms on the faded wallpaper have long since wilted.
“The air in the houses is musty with neglect yet but a few months before, these were bustling homes filled with frying bacon and steaming irons, whistling kettles and playing children. The houses witnessed all these scenes for more than 150 years. Behind their curtains were enacted a thousand stories but tomorrow they will be destroyed because Inkerman Street is the last of its ilk.
“Now, on the eve of the street’s death, the people who once lived here have returned, gathering solemn and silent in the mist, the ghosts of the past come to pay final tribute….”
The anthology can be purchased at http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/7524452/bae89c993c98ec8c8b37b12d6b9b37ecced5dec3
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