My Ragges of Heart - novel

This is the story of a dying woman's pilgrimage to a place of memories. As she struggles through the snow, she relives her life and her loves, especially the all-consuming love of her life.

It is a collection of romantic recollections, viewed through the intervening years. Sometimes the narrator queries the validity of the remembered emotions but mostly she accepts them as she felt them in her youth.

The central love affair is an illicit affair between a married man and a much younger woman. The relationship is coloured by the guilt felt by both parties - a guilt which they attempt to assuage by believing in the inevitability of their love. They see this as an androgynous relationship - an essential belonging throughout eternity.

excerpt

Hospitalised - play

This is a 45 minute play, originally written for radio. It is a black comedy about a group of women in hospital for various gynaecological problems in the early nineteen-eighties. They are all smokers and congregate in the smokers' room to talk.

The ages of the women range from teens to eighties. Some are in hospital because they have lost the chance of ever having children, whilst others are there for abortion. The callousness of the system puts these women side by side. The nurses and doctors are overworked but still manage to look after the patients in a caring way.

In some senses, this is an indictment of the system as it was. It may have improved in some respects but still has a long way to go. It is also a demonstration of how those with the worst problems seem to maintain a sense of humour and the ability to care about others.

excerpt

A Wild Strange Place & Other Stories

A collection of short stories set in Cornwall: tales of the supernatural and tales evoking the primeval atmosphere of West Cornwall.

excerpt