Cliff House

Last week my Writing Group took a trip to Cliff House Holiday Park near Dunwich where one can purchase residential log cabin style lodge holiday homes . It is set amidst woodland atop the cliffs which lead down to the single beach. This is my output from the day.

 

Fellen sleepers slumber deep

Rotten carcasses half asleep

Eroded shorelines cry and weep

 

Sea kale mounds reclaim the stones

Lost and found some old grey bones

Blackbirds sing as waves roar

12 church bells peel no more

 

Woodland paths aside the seas

Smiling happy families

Fitted kitchens, garden sheds

I bet there’s even Goodnight beds

 

No rustic lodges frontier life

But edges planed off with a knife

Wild flowers mix with daffodils

Pretty lawns and floral sills

 

Fine dining and welly boots

Needless men arrive in suits

Playing footie unawares

Of penetrating kitchen stares

Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy

This is a book, aimed at Young Adults, won the Booktrust Teenage Prize in 2004. The potentially difficult subject, a child who murders another child, is deftly handled by the author who in this first of two books tells the story of Alice Tully, aka Jenifer Jones. At 17 years of age she has been released from prison after having killed her best friend when they were 10.

The reader is placed in a situation where she is sympathetic towards the young woman because the author makes the story around the topic of an ineffective parent, discovery by the tabloids, sympathetic social workers, and shows Alice doing the normal teenage things like having a boyfriend, working and planning for university.

In the end the tabloids are hot on her heels, unwilling to let a story lie and to believe that someone can change and have the right to life a live just like anyone else.

ashramblings verdict 3* A difficult topic well handled.

 

Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy

An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan

What can one say about this book but that it is an incredible record of an incredible achievement, namely that of remaining a sane human through an insanely inhumane experience. His insight into the mind of hostage and hostage taker, torturer and tortured is phenomenal. Yes, it is a hard read, extremely emotional in places but it provides an incredible insight into the depths of the human mind. It provides a well written account of his journey into self, his friendship and joking camaraderie with fellow hostage John McCarthy as they moved from place to place in Lebanon. He conveys an acute understanding of the pitiable, sexually repressed young men who guard them. Weaned on violence, nurtured on religious dogma, exhibiting unbelievably cruelty one moment and who want to learn to dance with their wife for their wedding the next, they are as much caught up in the situation as Keenan was. Throughout his four and half years in captivity, initially alone, Keenan never gave up and never gave in – stubborn – yes, resilient – yes, survivor – yes. One can but be in awe and admiration.

ashramblings verdict 5*  - a tour de force from a remarkable man.

An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan