Published WorkHaving travelled most of my working life, I love to write about the places I've visited, people I've met and things I've seen - and the food I ate. I've submitted quite a few articles on travel to various competition sites, and here are some of the published ones.
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Your Say, the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday 12th September 2021
Readers Contributions on the theme of History Made Palpable
Winning Letter of the Week (Prize a stay for two at Visit Pembrokeshire luxury hotel)
A child's hand, outlined in red. My seven-year-old son solemnly regards his own hand. Identical. The guide rattles rapid French; I mutter an inadequate translation, receiving a hushing glare. The English speaking tours of Font de Gaume cave in Dordogne were booked up months ago. Open mouthed, we gaze; wonders unfolding, our plumes of breath ghosts in the chill air. Outlined buffalo, horses, mammoths. Less showy than Lascaux's Technicolour horses, but it's the real deal, not a copy, the only polychrome cave still open to the public. Long-ago people entered this cave, creating art that has survived 19,000 years. We gasp. A frieze of 3D buffalos emerges above. The guide flourishes, conjuring up two reindeer, the larger tenderly licking the smaller. Human stick-figures dance around. The long-dead girl's breath shivers the hairs on the back of our necks. Us but not us. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where did you go?
Readers Contributions on the theme of History Made Palpable
Winning Letter of the Week (Prize a stay for two at Visit Pembrokeshire luxury hotel)
A child's hand, outlined in red. My seven-year-old son solemnly regards his own hand. Identical. The guide rattles rapid French; I mutter an inadequate translation, receiving a hushing glare. The English speaking tours of Font de Gaume cave in Dordogne were booked up months ago. Open mouthed, we gaze; wonders unfolding, our plumes of breath ghosts in the chill air. Outlined buffalo, horses, mammoths. Less showy than Lascaux's Technicolour horses, but it's the real deal, not a copy, the only polychrome cave still open to the public. Long-ago people entered this cave, creating art that has survived 19,000 years. We gasp. A frieze of 3D buffalos emerges above. The guide flourishes, conjuring up two reindeer, the larger tenderly licking the smaller. Human stick-figures dance around. The long-dead girl's breath shivers the hairs on the back of our necks. Us but not us. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where did you go?
Your Say, the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday 4th July 2021
Readers Contributions on the theme of My Favourite Caribbean Island
Winning Letter of the Week (Prize £250 privately guided tour from a Blue Badge Tourist Guide.)
Forget your Disney-perfect fake paradises. Here's the real deal; where Caribbean people live and work, fish, construct, farm and yes, take care of the tourists too, but can look you in the eye or turn away if they choose. St. Maarten is interesting and slightly gritty; neither the landscape or the people are there just to please you. That said, they can't help it. Mist-wreathed mountain peaks, dripping gloomy forest, sun-drenched candy-sand beaches, mythical islands balancing on the horizon, cartoon-coloured reefs inhabited by sociable fish and scowling turtles. Plentiful fresh seafood wends its way on to your plate, your glass is filled frequently with rum. Enormous jumbo jets lumber over the horizon, floating impossibly down over Simpson Beach, as an endless frisson of engine noise tingles along your nerves. The best bit: people of heart and warmth, music and argument, honesty and bravado. No saints, just friends you don't yet know very well.
Readers Contributions on the theme of My Favourite Caribbean Island
Winning Letter of the Week (Prize £250 privately guided tour from a Blue Badge Tourist Guide.)
Forget your Disney-perfect fake paradises. Here's the real deal; where Caribbean people live and work, fish, construct, farm and yes, take care of the tourists too, but can look you in the eye or turn away if they choose. St. Maarten is interesting and slightly gritty; neither the landscape or the people are there just to please you. That said, they can't help it. Mist-wreathed mountain peaks, dripping gloomy forest, sun-drenched candy-sand beaches, mythical islands balancing on the horizon, cartoon-coloured reefs inhabited by sociable fish and scowling turtles. Plentiful fresh seafood wends its way on to your plate, your glass is filled frequently with rum. Enormous jumbo jets lumber over the horizon, floating impossibly down over Simpson Beach, as an endless frisson of engine noise tingles along your nerves. The best bit: people of heart and warmth, music and argument, honesty and bravado. No saints, just friends you don't yet know very well.
YourSay, The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday 21st March 2021
Readers Contributions on the theme of Spain or Greece?
The valley of Nemea, voices on the wind. Golden-eyed warriors sleep quiet in their graves as the grass grows long. Their lions wait patiently by the open gates, guarding the emptied treasury.
History never left this place. A millennium after Mycenae slipped into its slotted-stone sleep, Epidaurus took the stage. The amphitheatre thrums even yet with echoing drama; masked actors gesticulate, shadowed by overhanging pines. Romans succeeded Greeks, succeeded by Turks, succeeded by Greeks. History turns like a wheel. The germlines of our civilisation weave like the grass around the ruins; old before our people made cups of clay. We love Spain of course, but we learn from Greece.
Readers Contributions on the theme of Spain or Greece?
The valley of Nemea, voices on the wind. Golden-eyed warriors sleep quiet in their graves as the grass grows long. Their lions wait patiently by the open gates, guarding the emptied treasury.
History never left this place. A millennium after Mycenae slipped into its slotted-stone sleep, Epidaurus took the stage. The amphitheatre thrums even yet with echoing drama; masked actors gesticulate, shadowed by overhanging pines. Romans succeeded Greeks, succeeded by Turks, succeeded by Greeks. History turns like a wheel. The germlines of our civilisation weave like the grass around the ruins; old before our people made cups of clay. We love Spain of course, but we learn from Greece.
YourSay, The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday 10th January 2021
Readers contributions on the theme of Pandemic Escapes - Closer to Home
Winning Letter of the Week (£250 Aito Holiday Voucher)
Between the locks, under bridges, beneath the trees, by the lapping margin: falls the silence. Peace broken by the kingfisher's iridescent flash; sliced by the cream-jerseyed bowler running up the crease, spectators crouched like grounded beetles in distanced deckchairs; peace echoed by the fishermen blinking toadlike on the bank. Released from the gilded prison of home, exchanged for the narrowboat's floating jail, our family bubble drifts outside the world. Writer-son drinks vodka, contemplating infinite reflections in the canal's dusky mirror. Pilot-son discovers a new element, sliding his metal craft through clouded water. The countryside's green beard grows slow from the banks, creeping down red sandstone cliffs, handing us blackberries, concealing herons, throwing acorns on our roof. Aqueducts, motorways, malls, church towers, cricket grounds appear and then float forgotten behind us. The Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal is a place not of this earth; it's what we needed.
Readers contributions on the theme of Pandemic Escapes - Closer to Home
Winning Letter of the Week (£250 Aito Holiday Voucher)
Between the locks, under bridges, beneath the trees, by the lapping margin: falls the silence. Peace broken by the kingfisher's iridescent flash; sliced by the cream-jerseyed bowler running up the crease, spectators crouched like grounded beetles in distanced deckchairs; peace echoed by the fishermen blinking toadlike on the bank. Released from the gilded prison of home, exchanged for the narrowboat's floating jail, our family bubble drifts outside the world. Writer-son drinks vodka, contemplating infinite reflections in the canal's dusky mirror. Pilot-son discovers a new element, sliding his metal craft through clouded water. The countryside's green beard grows slow from the banks, creeping down red sandstone cliffs, handing us blackberries, concealing herons, throwing acorns on our roof. Aqueducts, motorways, malls, church towers, cricket grounds appear and then float forgotten behind us. The Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal is a place not of this earth; it's what we needed.
