1955! Part Two

1955! Part One

'For Something I’d Done' was adapted from an online diary made on the 15th of September 2014 relating to a recently suffered nightmare, which was subsequently embellished and versified. Image from Sep...

'Incident in St. Christopher’s Place' was based on a letter written to a friend referring to events that took place around 1990 or ’91, but never sent. Image ca. 1989.

'A Cambridge Lamentation' centres on my brief sojourn at a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Its primary source is a letter written on campus on the Hills Road just outside the city ...

'Some Sad Dark Secret' was inspired by words spoken to me by a former tutor and mentor of mine at university in London, as well as my own reflections on them in the shape of makeshift journal entries....

'Some Perverse Will' dates from around 1980 so I believe, and remains largely, or perhaps even wholly, unchanged. How much of it is reflective of my mental state at the time of its creation I cannot s...

'Such a Short Space of Time' was based on some kind of confessional piece of writing I briefly worked on sometime in the mid 1990s, but which was never truly realised. It was partly inspired, as I rem...

'There Once Was a Long-Vanished England' was derived from two autobiographical pieces, one having initially existed around 2001 as some kind of prose poem or attenuated short story; while the other al...

'The Wicked Cahoots of Bedford Park' has its origins in an unfinished story written around the age of 21, which first saw the light of day in versified form in 2006 as 'Wicked Cahoots'.

'The Woodville Halls Soul Boys' was adapted ca. the mid 2000s from an unfinished story dating from when I was around 23 years old; although looking back to some two years previously to a time I was a ...

'Tales of a Paris Flâneur', which consists of a patchwork of memories and impressions of Paris compiled between autumn 1983 and spring '84, and possibly partially originating as notes or makeshift jou...

'Mi Pueblito Perdito' was based on diary notes dating from the 28th of August 2014, and while it twice came close to being jettisoned from this collection, it was ultimately included as a result of be...

'Lone Birthday Boy Dancing' was almost certainly drafted as a makeshift journal entry on 8 October 1992, or perhaps a year earlier, before being very roughly versified many years later, even while its...

'An Actor Arrives at the Bristol Old Vic' has as its origins the barest elements of a story started - but never finished - in early 1980, while I was working at the Bristol Old Vic, a famous theatre i...

'Who Lives in My Perfect Love' is a reasonably faithful translation of a song I wrote in French aged ca. 19 years old, and which was refurbished around 2013 with its original title of 'Mon Parfait Amo...

'Toilers of the Sea' was written in 2003, with lyrics grafted onto an older melody. A fantastical piece, its creation was partially inspired by the novel 'Les Travailleurs de la mer' by Victor Hugo, a...

'Yes, I Regret' was written and recorded as a song in the earlier part of 2017, with new, autobiographical lyrics tacked onto a melody sketched out on piano when I was about 24. Image from 2017.

'Stevie B and Me', aka 'Under Blue Berkshire Skies', was written in 2003 in praise of a friendship enjoyed several decades previously as a teenager at college in the eponymous English county of Berksh...

Or 'See That the Summer's Come' &c was initially written as a song in 2003, being subject to minor revisions in June 2017. Image from ca. 2003.