Short stories

These stories were published as Many Happy Returns more than twenty years ago, and they're now out of print. Reading them again, they seem very safe and cosy. When I wrote them, I was married with a baby and two older children. I wrote the kind of stories I liked reading them at bedtime: safe, funny, only mildly startling. I poke fun at parents like myself and touch on some of the things I find funny about family life. I wouldn't write like that now: the world is darker and more dangerous than most of these stories express. (It always was, but I had other things to think about then.) The exception is 'The Name is Billy Molloy', which deals obliquely with cruelty and injustice, not to mention nervous breakdown - albeit in the past, and at

a safe distance.

  Cosy stories about nothing in particular aren't much in fashion today, but

if you want to download one and read it at bedtime, I don't think it will keep you awake. You may, indeed, fall asleep before you finish. . . I hope not, though.

  In order to download a story, just sign in (or, if you're a new user, sign

up). That's it.

1 My Gran's Jumper

Sean's Gran knits him a tent of a jumper.

You could fit a football team inside. But

his Mum says he's got to wear it to school. . .

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