Inkerman Writers
a showcase of our work
Talking books entry by Sandra Spears
Ronnie Ray
Not that I’m one to repeat of course. It’s the shock of it all you see; it’s given me one of my funny turns. I mean you just don’t expect that kind of thing do you? It sent shivers right down my spine when I saw him do it. You’d think a man of his age would know better. Well saying that, he’s always been a bit of a dark horse has that one. He has these eyes that don’t miss a trick, always darting about in different directions looking for trouble. ‘Footballer’s eyes’ my Bert called them - one at home and one away. Oh yes, I could tell you things about him that would make you hair curl that’s for sure. But as I say I’m not one to repeat. As it was, I was only there by chance. My friend Doreen and I, we always share a pot of tea and a custard cream on a Thursday in the cafe on the top floor, only today she left early. She had one of her heads coming on she said. My bus doesn’t leave till two and I had no intentions of paying for more tea, so I decided to take a look in lady’s lingerie. I was browsing their small selection of winceyette when I noticed out of the corner of my eye loitering in the knicker aisle, Ronnie Ray. I knew it was him straight away of course, I’d recognize him anywhere. There was something about his behaviour that wasn’t quite right. I mean he’s always looked shifty but he looked even shiftier than usual and I noticed he was hovering around the indecent rail fiddling with the thongs and double gussets. He kept glancing towards the exit then at the assistant before stuffing several pairs of female briefs down his trousers and making a run for it. I don’t know what made me do it, I mean it’s not like me to behave like that but I pointed my finger straight at him and shouted at the top of my voice “Stop Thief”. Before you knew it a security guard appeared from nowhere and apprehended him before he had a chance to get away. He looked straight at me and uttered some words I couldn’t possibly repeat, but they were enough to put the wind up me I can tell you. I knew his wife; well it was Doreen who knew her really. Sylvia her name was, a lovely woman. Long dark hair she had and a mole on her upper lip that unfortunately resembled a dried up current from a stale Garibaldi. According to Doreen who insists on telling me everything as she knows I’m not one to gossip, Sylvia had put up with all sorts for a long time from Ronnie, until she came home early from bingo one night and found him running a chat line in the front parlour; you know one of those S.E.X ones. Dressed as a woman he was, oh yes; fish net tights, rah-rah skirt, boob tube, the lot. Called himself Lola Lovehoney can you believe? By all accounts Sylvia left him there and then, just disappeared in the middle of the night.
There was a lot of gossip and rumour at the time as to her whereabouts, mostly spread by Ronnie I might add. He said she was working on a cruise ship as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. Of course no one believed it; her mole was in the wrong place for a start. As I keep saying I’m not one to repeat but it’s always seemed very strange to me that no one has heard anything from her since she disappeared and as I said earlier Ronnie Ray is just plain shifty.
How about a photograph of me posing in the knicker aisle to go alongside the interview? It would I’m sure go down very well. Oh yes! Just one more thing, make sure you print my name correctly won’t you? It’s Thomson, no ‘p’.
Sandra Spears
674 words
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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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