Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

Late evening light is sharpened bright by hidden setting sun. A ghostly boat burns fiery white, birds dazzle, spin and plunge. Shafts of fire light many a pyre across Kilbrannan Sound. Ten thousand years of settlement and this is where I’m found. The castle keep’s a silent stone, the raiders swept away. A laird’s house sits grand in a field and stares across the bay. Ferryman waits awhile for stores when roads were made of sea, but Cul na Shee, that nook of peace, is where I choose to be. An itch in my ear says the midges are here, my beach fire is burning out fast, but Cul na Shee is waiting for me with sunset now served in a glass. Beach fire Saddell House Saddell Castle Cul na Shee We rented a cottage from the Landmark Trust in Kintyre. The cottage was built in the 1930s right next to the beach for the retiring village

Sometimes you finish reading a book you’ve enjoyed and are just dying to ask the author something about it. Well this week I got the chance to grill Andrew Shephard at the Writers’ Lunch about his newly published novel Nellie and Tabs, while he was waiting for the tomato sauce. Your novel comes with such a powerful sense of the sights, sounds and smells of the 70’s alternative culture. Did you write this from your own experience or did you do a lot of research? A lot of the details are dredged from my own experiences, and stories that I remember people telling me at the time. I didn’t do much research other than looking at old magazines and letters because I wanted to condense the main action into one year, and I didn’t want the facts to get in the way of a good story. When you write a novel do you start with character or plot? Or was it the 70’s culture that inspired the story? With this novel I started with the setting. The alternative society, as it was called at th

Lost.          To the marching lines of khaki ants. To the shouts of a corporal not much older than you. To the exciting unknown. For comradeship trumps love In this game of men. Lost. To the sound of the guns which took root in your head. To the screaming black void, which held you in its grip. Empty eyes searching For fragments of peace Amidst a deluge of fear. Lost. Sucked into the greedy mud of a French field. Becoming one with the sodden earth, an impromptu grave. Your dreams have escaped you, Exhaled into the universe, Borne aloft on your last breath.

Phil watched Katie as she bent her head to read the dimensions of the room in the brochure.   The sun was streaming in through the patio windows and it lit up the highlights in her long blonde hair, as it fell over her shoulders.   Something flipped inside him.   He realised that he’d never seen such a beautiful creature.   He fought the urge to reach out and touch her silky hair.   She looked up and asked him a question but he didn’t hear what she was saying.   He was transfixed by that pretty little elphin face and those huge green eyes and he felt his stomach lurch with desire. ‘Bloody hell, Phil, get a grip!’ he told himself, breathing in deeply and trying to concentrate on what she was saying.   Katie’s eyes flickered with a brief moment of puzzlement as she rephrased the question and this time Phil listened carefully and then answered as briefly as he could, before leading the couple out into the hallway.   He knew that he had to get himself as far away from her as was