Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

No chance to grow, be cherished and loved My precious baby boy. Leaving behind just heartache and pain When there should have been such joy. I’ll never forget your tiny face The picture’s engraved on my heart. I held you tightly in my arms Knowing we soon would part. As time moves on, the pain subsides Yet the memories are bright and clear. Rest in peace my little one There’s nothing for you to fear.

It's a life by algorithm, in case you hadn't seen, for our own good, they said, now everyone is keen. The things you watch, the things you say, all noted in the cloud, we're getting more of what we like, so feeling oh so proud. Give me more, I want it now, we rubbed our hands with glee, I can have whatever I want if I pay the monthly fee. Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, their promise is insane, yet all I do is flick around as everything's the same. Fear not, there's more, for the hungry and the needier,- it's our saviour at long last, in the guise of social media. The personal lives of everyone streaming live and on your phone, make-up tips, pick-pockets, and an irritating drone. Watch it once, or hesitate, and they've got you by the goolies, But keep your scroll, and do not stop, to ponder who the fool is? Stepping out of line may seem divine, but be wary if you stray, there's a world out there of popping boils and treating tooth...

  In the valley below me it is winter. Memories of Christmas fade, the solstice recedes further back still, and Meltham rests silently in a December dress of mist and mud, under a blanket of dolphin-grey cloud. On foot I climb ‘The Catch’; upwards past pine and stile to ascend further still into a world of light and colour; a breathless, sun-kissed world of warmth in which, God-like, I stand above cloud, valley, and all of creation. I have experienced nothing like this before in my life, save when, in my own dark days, that same sullen blanket settles itself about my heart to smother what light it finds within; but now, here on this hilltop, I know, all I ever need do is ascend.

  I’m dreaming of a sh**e Christmas, when it pours with rain on Christmas Day. And you’ve cooked the turkey till it’s like beef jerky but you’ve got to eat it anyway.   It drags from afternoon to night, Christmas. Now Grandad’s snoring in his chair and the kids are raving and misbehaving but by then you’re too far gone to care.   Once again, it’s been a sh**e Christmas like almost every one I’ve had but we’ve all got merry on too much sherry and it somehow doesn’t seem so bad   Why must it be so sh**e, Christmas? so sentimental and so trite. As I bid my family goodnight I pray next Christmas won’t be sh**e

The sound of sleigh bells fills the air, Santa's arriving without a care. He certainly seems extremely merry - by the looks of it, he's been hitting the sherry. The reindeers are struggling to keep the sleigh steady. How on earth did the elves get everything ready? They shouldn't have partied, but what a good night, although poor Santa looks quite a sight. Presents perched at a precarious angle. Tinsel and ribbons in such a tangle. "Get a move on," shouts Santa, as he breaks into song. "If we go a bit faster, it shouldn't take long." The presents survive the hazardous trip, but Santa is feeling a little bit sick. Mince pies and chocolates have soaked up the booze, now he wants to go home with no time to lose. Rudolph and friends take a well-earned break, to munch on carrots and Christmas cake. Relieved it's all over until next December, but it's certainly been a night to remember.

The first blue stain of light has not yet spilled itself across the blackness of the night, and I am elsewhere, sailing through the half‑world, drifting on a tide of sleep down rivulets of dreams. Achingly… imperceptibly, the world turns by degrees to face the scant warmth of dawn, lapping still lazily at the shore of the day— the shortest of days— on which the year turns, and all life must die to be reborn. The small and quarrelsome creature that I have become through the dark days of winter stretches back into the shape of lengthening days, brought to life by soft kisses of light, until all darkness is burned away and I am alive again.