A Gentleman Adventurer

By Audrey Coldron

Canary

By Adrian Morris

 Martin

By Cherrill Copperwheat

Flying Upside-Down

By Bill Brakes

The Lengthened Shadow of a Man is History

By Anne Powell

Memory Club

By J.D. Hall

Fahrenheit 451

By Malcolm Peake

Audrey Coldron

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in Horbury, a village near Wakefield in West Yorkshire, near the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (formerly Bretton Hall Grounds). I was born in Liverpool and I completed school and university there during the Second World War and the Blitz. I worked in theatre but teaching was my career (in Bretton Hall College’s Theatre Department, and latterly in the US). I directed amateur productions, including summer Shakespeare plays at Bradford Cathedral. I’ve a great son and two lovely granddaughters.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I’d been dabbling with short pieces of prose and verse. The King Lear Prizes challenged me to create something completed and shaped. As a ‘shielding’ oldie, I found becoming absorbed in the writing enormously helpful for my well-being.

What inspired your work?

I cut out a photograph (I’ve forgotten the context) of an old man sitting in a shabby room by a small table with a seemingly incongruous, exquisitely-patterned china teacup and saucer. A severe-looking uniformed nurse stood by. Pondering it, my imagination explored the usual questions: who, what, where, why, when?

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

Much reading including Underland by Robert MacFarlane (I’m a fan), enjoying and learning from excellent TV documentaries, especially BBC4; some escapist TV; live-streaming performances; Skyping family and friends; watching the flowers grow and the birds feeding in my little garden.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

Just going out safely; dinner with the family (my son’s cooking!); meeting friends; going to the theatre – there are good ones nearby in Yorkshire - and cinema (selectively). More writing for sure.

Adrian Morris

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in Wigan, Greater Manchester and I was born in a mining village in Northumberland. My father and most of my male relatives were miners. In 1964, I began a teacher training course where I did music as my main subject. I began teaching in 1967 in a small primary school in North Warwickshire.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I entered the King Lear Prizes because I was curious as to how acceptable my writing would appear to a wider audience.

What inspired your work?

My story was inspired by a series of dreams.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

I have explored, in great detail, the local area within a mile or two of my house. This led me to resurrect my interest in photography. I then joined a photoblog to show my images to a wider audience.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

I am looking forward to going out with my wife to visit our daughters and granddaughters.

Cherrill Copperwheat

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in a small coastal village in a beautiful, rugged part of south-west Wales. I was brought up mainly in London and enjoyed being a teenager there in the swinging sixties. I studied at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne and, after a short spell working in Glasgow and Durham, I moved to Bristol where I married, raised a family and continued my work as a Landscape Architect in both Bristol and Bath. I’ve written poetry since being a teenager and have always enjoyed outdoor pursuits and dance.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I’d felt quite blocked with my writing since before the beginning of the year and I thought trying to write for a competition such as the King Lear Prizes might help me overcome it. It did and I’m writing again, so thank you!

What inspired your work?

Simply trying to write in a different voice and letting it take me where it wanted to go.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

Keeping ‘busy’ has not been an aim. I’m lucky to live where I do and have enjoyed just ‘standing and staring’. I’ve thrilled at the utter tranquility and silence.  I have also spent time growing lots of vegetables, keeping in touch with family and friends by whatever means is available, being out on the land on daily walks in the local area and journalling. I’ve read copiously too and started to draw again.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

Hugging my children and grandchildren, meeting my new grandchild (due any day now) for the first time and visiting friends who do not live nearby. Travelling at some point to visit my daughter and two grandsons in Australia or have them come to us.

Bill Brakes

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in Hunstanton, Norfolk. I attended Trinity College, Cambridge where I gained a PhD. I was a mathematician and worked as a lecturer in various universities. On retirement, I took an MA in Modern English Studies (which included modules on creative writing). Since then, I've been writing - two novels (unpublished) and many short stories.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

To support an excellent initiative and to measure myself against others.

What inspired your work?

The time and location are from my student days. Maria is an invention, the type of woman I'd like to have met in those days but didn't.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

Reading, running, lace-making, 'Escape-room' jigsaw puzzles, crosswords and playing 'Go' on the internet.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

Scottish Country Dancing!

Anne Powell

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

My husband and I live in a village near Beverley, East Yorkshire. I grew up in West Yorkshire, the daughter of a textile manufacturer and a one-time child silent movie star. I went to Southampton University in 1964, where I met my husband. We have two sons. I was an English and drama teacher and I gained an MA in Women and Literature in the mid-1990s.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I’ve been entering short stories, novels and plays in competitions for years, hoping to attract the interest of an agent or publisher. I was delighted that The King Lear Prize targeted older creative people. The web site was user-friendly and the tone encouraging and lively; I couldn’t resist the challenge!

What inspired your work?

A picture of Tollund Man in The Bog People by P. V. Glob and the frightening experience of visiting a house where the disturbing atmosphere of the past seeped into the present.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

I’ve enjoyed practising the piano (properly) daily, Face-Timing grandchildren to help with home schooling, writing limericks (!), editing (for the third time) my unpublished historical novel Vanishing Point, devising Connecting Walls, emailing friends and relations and exploring the little-known beauty of the Yorkshire Wolds on walks with my husband. 

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

Having seen my sister, my sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren as soon as restrictions were eased, and having visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth last Sunday, I am now looking forward most of all to going to a theatre. 

Malcolm Peake

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in Barlaston, a village in Staffordshire. I was born in Burslem, Stoke on Trent within spitting distance of the home of Arnold Bennett. My parents made me go to school until I was fifteen … my school reports always read ‘could have done better’. I couldn’t wait to leave!

I worked first as an indentured apprentice printer in a works virtually at the bottom of our street, not far (two spits and a hop) from where Darius Clayhanger, owner of the first steam printing works in Bursley, traded. At around twenty five I became my own boss and remained so until I retired in 2005. In 2015/16, aged 70, I went to Keele University and came home with an MA. ‘Could have done better’ … I did!

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

After retiring I joined a writing group in Newcastle under Lyme, they were a great bunch of people who critiqued my stories and encouraged me to write more. Thank you for providing the opportunity and platform for people of my age to share our work.

What inspired your work?

Years ago ITV always finished off their 10’oclock broadcast with a light hearted snippet. At the end of one Trevor McDonald told viewers ’… that paper ignites at 451 degrees Fahrenheit’. I didn’t know that, did you? For some reason it got lodged in my memory. So when scratching around for inspiration I used it as the basis for a story.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

I have reread my collection of stories. Edited some, rewritten others and drastically, not so much ‘cut and pasted’,more ‘cut and deleted’ others! A job I needed to do because just prior to lockdown I was diagnosed with having Macular Degeneration in both eyes. It could turn out to be a bit of a bummer, both for the pleasure I get from my writing and for my love of taking photographs too!

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

The pleasure of seeing my stories published in all or any one of the media that the King Lear Prizes list’s in the Submission Rules.