Worthing Flash

A sunny Saturday morning in September, 1960. Bert Platt, the World’s Best Dad (he has the cup from Woolies to prove it), is standing under a pawnshop’s three golden balls and peering through the grimy window at a ‘JOMMETRY SET’. Beside him is a Brylcreemed short back and sides in a new school uniform. Bert left school at fourteen and got a job in the Jacob’s Biscuit factory. He is very proud and a little in awe of his clever son Tommy, who has just started in the A class of The Collegiate, one of the best grammar schools in Liverpool, and is now doing things like Maths and Latin. Bert gazes at the stainless steel compass and dividers nestling in the (slightly dented) black case among unredeemed watches and wedding rings. Then he eyes the price tag beside it. He sucks his false teeth at the thought of all the pints and ciggies he’ll have to miss if he splashes out the nineteen shillings and eleven pence. But he wants his lad to make the most of the opportunities his own generatio...

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by Paul Murgatroyd Christopher Tinker sat back at his Victorian roll-top desk, nibbled a biscotto, took a sip of Madeira and nodded judiciously. The poem resonated with him. He didn’t know what its title (Ipsation) meant, and he wasn’t quite sure of its overall thrust, but, no matter, he felt that it was immanent. He read it again: skald of allusion symbolatry’s archpriest imagistic orgastic as you chant nothing assonantal to a trio of congeners in your CLOAK of ebony at the shrill demented heart of a selva oscura pay no attention to the profanum vulgus ignore all the littlepeople who dismiss your poems as pointless and unintelligible for u are singing in perfect harmony with the world of selfish self-indulgent humanity speeding eyes wide shut to nullity Yes, he decided, it was unobvious and dislocative; it had dare and edge; and it transcended tralaticious clarity – just the thing for Castalian Wood. As a courtesy, he’d show it to young Rodney...

Doctor Harris murmured: ‘Good lord, extraordinary thing,’ when he found a dove inserted in the anus of young Gwendoline, and, as he pulled it out, he dislodged three feathers, which fluttered and swooped down to the crimson rug beside the bed. He had been summoned to certify her death after she was found in her bed that morning cold and rigid, with horror in her wild, wide-eyed stare. The contorted posture of the body led him to investigate further. Bruising indicated to him that force had been used in a vicious assault on the poor girl. * The night before, when Gwendoline went to bed, she pulled back the bedclothes to find spread out before her a human heart, a glistening coil of entrails and several unidentifiable organs and lumps of flesh. She gasped, and then the stench of blood and excrement reached her and heaved bile up into the back of her throat. Suddenly a figure with a maimed face rose up in front of her, gripped her hand and shouted. She fainted and fell to th...

Arcadia – care and comfort of the highest quality, and truly epic luxury. Our mission is to enrich your Loved One’s golden years by means of unrivalled levels of sensitive and compassionate service in a homely, respectful and empathetic environment. A high support-to-resident ratio and an holistic person-centered care plan ensure that guests traverse this new and exciting chapter of their lives with dignity and fulfilment. A serene retreat from the nearby hurly-burly of Bognor Regis, Arcadia is a beautiful Georgian villa in a stunning location. It sits proudly atop an idyllic hillock and rejoices in heart-stopping views of Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering Parish Church and its picturesque graveyard. Our immaculately-appointed spacious suites boast lavish interiors with exquisite d é cor, high-end furnishings and state-of-the-art amenities and facilities that are specially tailored to each person’s needs and empower them to enjoy literally halycon days (and nights). These in...

by Paul Murgatroyd sudden blackness outside the window standing out on the brown ground how is it there? no movement no sound an alien shape shape gone mad a disembodied shadow? a black hole? a chunk of night somehow there in the daylight? chainmail and ridges a gash of sunshine a ring of sunshine around the brightdark it moved drooped a creature from another world? from the Valley of Death? ‘ Grandad, what’s that weird thing out on the lawn?  There .’ ‘ Bloody hell!’ ‘ What? Is it dangerous? It is, isn’t it?’ ‘ No. But it’s very strange… I saw a picture of this once, in an old book, from before The Heat…I thought they were all dead. This is something special, lad, really special.’ ‘ What is it?’ ‘ It’s called a  turdus merula .’ ‘ A what?’ ‘ A  turdus merula , a blackbird. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ by Paul Murgatroyd

by Paul Murgatroyd sudden blackness outside the window standing out on the brown ground how is it there? no movement no sound an alien shape shape gone mad a disembodied shadow? a black hole? a chunk of night somehow there in the daylight? chainmail and ridges a gash of sunshine a ring of sunshine around the brightdark it moved drooped a creature from another world? from the Valley of Death? ‘ Grandad, what’s that weird thing out on the lawn? There .’ ‘ Bloody hell!’ ‘ What? Is it dangerous? It is, isn’t it?’ ‘ No. But it’s very strange… I saw a picture of this once, in an old book, from before The Heat…I thought they were all dead. This is something special, lad, really special.’ ‘ What is it?’ ‘ It’s called a turdus merula .’ ‘ A what?’ ‘ A turdus merula , a blackbird. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

Early one Sunday morning in summer on The Promenade a congregation of eight drone hymns of praise to the waves, with an accordion accompaniment, close to a chalked 666. Something to do with rising sea levels? A little later some reckless bathers wake up and smell the sewage, while a lone child builds a sand castle that looks like a baby’s grave-mound. Conversazione: a mid-day gang of middle-aged women at The Fire Station’s stained sticky outdoor tables boozing, babbling, cackling, shrieking. A cobbler’s shop called SOLED OUT, up for sale. Brazen-tongued birds of the sea soar and glide and swoop, describing elaborate arabesques in the voluptuous air outside Laura’s Fish bar. In dismal coalescence, an old lady with a stick takes her arthritic old Labrador for a hobble. At the entrance of an amusement arcade a little lad with an ice cream cone in his hand and mist in his eyes gazes at the ranks of flashy machines and mutters: ‘I wish our house was like that.’ The advert...

A young man, his mouth wide-open in a silent scream, holds out a hand shorn of two fingers, trying to fend off a maddened mob of dogs. But fangs are rending his legs and back and shoulders. Jaws crunch bone, bolt chunks of flesh. One hound hangs from a pale cheek, ripping off a rag of skin; another, snout-deep, is savaging the groin; another drags out a lump of lung. Foam-flecks whirl, slivers of drool trail, blood spurts and spatters and mists. Alastair stared at all this with roving eyes, relishing the carnage before him in his sour mood. Then he muttered: ‘I suppose that’s what’s known as going to the dogs.’ As he grinned at his own joke, he spotted something like horns sprouting from the young man’s head. He frowned and turned to the plaque beside the painting for an explanation. It informed him that this was the hunter Actaeon being turned into a stag and attacked by his own dogs as punishment for catching sight of the goddess Diana’s body while she was bathing. Alastair immedia...

Police and the RSPCA were summoned to the scene of a dramatic and grisly find yesterday morning in Howdon. The body of a decapitated cat was found in a field next to St Pauls Road. After an examination of the remains the animal was pronounced dead. A name tag on its collar contained the name Richard but gave no address. The killer’s identity and motive is unknown. The Wallsend Advertiser has contacted local residents for comment. Mr L. Platt of Number 32 said it was almost certainly a revenge killing. The cat was forever marking its territory on peoples fences and walls and digging up their flowers. He’d caught it more than once eyeing his petunias. Controversialy another resident who wishes to remain anonymous said the cat belonged to Mrs Braddock of number 27 and was the woman’s familiar and was used by her to cast murrains on her neighbours. When contacted for comment Mrs Braddock said she had never had a cat, familiar or unfamiliar. Mr Ian Smith, a local historian and ...

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‘ The first ship, its first voyage: on its quest for the Golden Fleece the Argo arrowed between the dread Clashing Rocks and landed in distant Mysia. Off for water went the handsome young hero Hylas, the innocent virgin Hylas. He finally found a rare spring, a spring with a nymph – beautiful Erato, as amorous and voluptuous as she was beautiful. While he gazed in wonder at the spring, she gazed at him, meltingly, from under wine-dark eyelids. Shading the spring and gentling the breeze were trees, heavy with sweet-scented queene-apples, trees from whose glancing leaves trance came shimmering down. All around the pool a swoon of colour: vermilion orchids and silvery lilies and roses of purple and gold, stirring silkily, whispering mystery. Through the pellucid water he stared at the bed far below, starred with sard and sardonyx, jacinth and jasper, beryl and chrysoberyl – gems to daze and maze the mind. Out from the trees stepped Erato, murmurin...