The Lingering Regrets
by Michael Bloor [first published in Literally Stories, Sept 17th, 2026] Considered objectively, Alan wasn’t really one of the bad guys. Provided it didn’t cost him significant quantities of time and/or cash, he was okay about helping out unfortunate relatives, friends, or neighbours. He had a soft spot for rough sleepers, as long as they…
Indeed, There is Balm in Gilead
by Michael Bloor [first published in Saragun Springs, Sept 15th, 2026] Though there was a rumour that his grandad had been Benito Mussolini’s food taster, Andrew was a proud Scot. In his retirement, he took up volunteering part-time, at Innerpeffray, Scotland’s first free-lending library (established in 1680). Andrew loved to brag gently to foreign visitors…
A Life Well Lived
by Michael Bloor [first published in Literally Stories, Sept 9th, 2026] When a farmer dies in Scotland, it’s the convention that he gets a big funeral. So, when auld Jockie Murdoch of Muirside died, it wasn’t just his relatives and his neighbours who turned up for him, but all the other farmers for many miles…
Nothing Lasts For Ever
by Michael Bloor [First published in Saragun Springs, August 31st, 2026] In the next seat to Alan on the plane, his fellow-passenger sighed as he replaced his plastic knife and fork in the cardboard food box, he turned to Alan and said, ‘That meal was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.’ Four hours into the…
A Coalfield Legacy: an Essay
by Michael Bloor (first published in Saragun Springs, August 5th 2026) I’ve lived most of my life on the periphery of coalfields. As a child, I could see the twin spoil-heaps of Swadlincote, in the South Derbyshire Coalfield, from my parents bedroom window. When my daughter was a child, she went to nursery school just…
The Poem That Changed His Life
by Michael Bloor [first published in Literally Stories, June 23rd 2026] I was reading James Fenton’s ‘Selected Poems’* and was very taken by one called ‘The Skip,’ in which the poet decides to take his life and throw it in a builder’s skip, parked outside the next-door neighbours’ house. Then he goes down to the…
Njal the Beardless, Life Coach
by Michael Bloor [first published in Literally Stories, June 21st 2026] All of Alan Arkwright’s university colleagues were frightened of Prof Blenkinsop, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. ‘Bloodlust’ Blenkinsop would probably have been a good deal happier in life if he’d been a Field Marshall in the army, say, or…
Beware the Wild Geese
by Michael Bloor [first published in Literally Stories, May 14th, 2026] June, 1971 Andy had messed up big-time in his final year at uni. He didn’t like his course. Economics, the ‘dismal science’ that ascribed a sovereign power to selfishness, thus scorning as scientifically irrelevant altruism, paternal and maternal love, solidarity, charity, and every noble…
Tommy Twinkle Toes and the Parrot
by Michael Bloor [first published in Saragun Springs, April 3rd, 2026] My wife Dorothy’s Uncle Derek reckons that he, in effect, bought the parrot off his crooked father-in-law, the veteran jewel-thief Tommy Twinkle Toes (that really was what the Sunday paper had called him, back in the day: ‘Tommy Twinkle Toes’). Derek took in the…
Wild Bill’s Thursday Afternoon Show
by Michael Bloor [First published in Saragun Springs, March 21st, 2026] ‘Hi there and welcome to The Thursday Afternoon Show on Radio Sherwood, with me your humble host and Turntable Operator, Wild Bill Hilcock… [a burst of Wild Bill’s personal jingle] ‘Not content with simply playing you The Very Best of The Seventies, we also…
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