The doctor felt himself growing weak and finally agreed. He was just leaving the beach when he recognised the two young bathers standing nearby, holding the reins of young Daniel Forrester’s runaway horse.
“Is the horseman going to be alright, sir?” asked Floss sympathetically, putting two and two together.
“Yes, I think so,” said Doctor Dean. “I’m pleased to say that he appeared to be recovering consciousness as he was being placed on the stretcher.”
“We’ve lost our school uniforms and our school satchels, sir. The sea washed them away,” Jess shivered as she spoke.
“What should we do with the horse, sir?” Floss asked looking a little lost.
“Lead it up the slipway and tether it to the promenade railings,” suggested the doctor.
An ambulance man gave Floss and Jess a blanket each to keep them warm and then radioed the police station for assistance.
“I have two young ladies here…” he faltered. “What are your names?”
“Flotsam and Jetsam,” Jess replied with a broad grin.
“Flotsam and Jetsam!” he repeated to the operator with a quizzical expression evident on his kind, intelligent face. “They’ve lost their school clothes in the sea and have rescued a runaway horse from the rising tide. Both they, and the horse, are in need of immediate assistance.
The girls began to laugh at the predicament they found themselves in and wrapping the blankets more tightly around their shivering bodies they patted the horse and reassured the ambulance man that they would wait patiently for the police to arrive.
*******
The Storm at Conwy Bay
Ruth Ann Titley
The storm swept in relentlessly towards Conwy Bay
While sombrous clouds gathered to turn the landscape grey.
It rumbled and it grumbled with an occasional flash of light
Challenging all other gods who cared to stand and fight.
The mountain slopes cast off their purple cloak of autumn haze
As nature’s palette burnished them with the sun’s golden rays.
The seagulls’ cries were heard as they sought refuge from the cold
While the calm before the storm welcomed Pan unto the fold.
Pan stood erect and played his pipes raised high towards the skies.
T’was a sweet seductive tune to sooth the storm’s angry sighs,
Which increased with intensity as n’er did it take heed,
Until, its anger scornfully lashed out with lightning speed.
A cacophonous concerto resounded in the bay,
Boats broke their fragile moorings as they wrestled with the sway.
Their rigging was a riot of jingling and humming as
The rain beat out his drumming to drown out the pipes of Pan.
Then, Pan, being sorely angered, the restless storm he smote
While on his pipes he played a loud discordant note,
But all the while the wind played his, own, wild rhapsody
Betwixt the masts and rigging of the vessels on the sea.
By daybreak, indefatigable Pan, had climbed the highest hill
From where he watched the rivers in full-spate, until
The sun shone and the birds sang a very sweet refrain
To celebrate, “Fair Weather,” and long may she reign.
*******
About the Authors
Tim Hulme
Tim Hulme began writing eleven years ago as a complete contrast after a career in accountancy. He writes short stories, many of which have been broadcast on local radio and read out at public events. He won first prize in the magazine Writers Forum with a story about the holocaust, although he likes to write in all genre from comic to romance and sci-fi. He has also written a novel involving mystery and revenge in a country village, called The Emerald Ring.
Andy Siddle
Andy Siddle is forty-eight, married with two children and lives in West Kirby. He won a Merseyside schools story competition at the age of nine. After graduating from Keele and doing an MA in Modern Fiction at the University of East Anglia, he spent a year in Ohio in the late 1980s helping to edit a literary journal called the Mid-American Review, reviewing and editing stories from as far apart as New York and San Francisco.
Back in England, he joined a travel guide publishing company as an editor in 1989. Learning to edit books to a high quality and with tight deadlines has stood him in good stead down the years. He joined Riverside Writers in West Kirby in 2009, where he has gained valuable insights and constructive feedback. One of Andy's short stories, Behind the Mask, was published in a priced anthology in 2011. It involves an amateur theatre group, mistaken identities and strong glue.
Andy has worked for the Health and Safety Executive as an editor for many years. He won the organisation’s 2012 short story competition with As Long as They Could Remember. It’s about a woman suffering from dementia and he has received lots of positive emails from colleagues who said it moved them to tears. He also writes poetry and is currently working on his first novel.
Adele Cosgrove-Bray
Adele Cosgrove-Bray is the author of a series of urban fantasy/paranormal romance novels which follow the lives of a community of artisan-sorcerers based in Liverpool. Tamsin, Rowan and Bethany Rose will be followed in 2013 by Fabian.
She also writes short fiction and poetry which are available as ebooks. She has worked as an editor for The Birchwood Guidebook and as a freelance writer for Exploring the Supernatural, Your Future and Prediction magazines. She has been featured in The Daily Mail newspaper and Marie Claire magazine.
She lives in West Kirby, Wirral, where she shares life with one husband, two dogs and a fluctuating assortment of non-human entities.
Peter Caton
Peter Caton is a family man in his sixties. He owns a gold-mine of experience, wisdom and characters from which he creates and colours his wide-ranging material: children's stories, fantasy, adult drama and humour, and poetry.
As a writer he is well-qualified and experienced: many years in the printing and publishing industry; extensive work in primary education and with young people of all ages; a qualified counsellor ... and great with children! Because he's a child at heart.
Nikki Bennett
Nikki has had six collections of poetry published and she has performed her poems at various poetry festivals and poetry group readings in the UK. She has also read her work in the USA and Europe, including at the conferences of International Women Writers' Guild (New York State) and Geneva International Writers.
She is a great believer in poetry as both communication and therapy, and in particular the highlighting of women's issues and circumstances. Her collection Love Shines Beyond Grief was nominated for the Ted Hughes Award for New Poetry 2010. As well as the collections, her poems have appeared in various magazines including: Crazy Lit, De Facto, Hearing Voices, Magma, Partners' Aspire, Ravenglass, Artemis and Roundyhouse.
Nikki is a member of The Poetry Society and of The Society of Women Writers and Journalists, and founded 'uni-verse' poetry group in Bath, which promotes and celebrates international poets and poetry.
Ruth Ann Titley
Ruth Ann Titley, N.D.D, Pottery special subject, is an accomplished freelance artist who has lectured in Art for many years until she decided to fulfil a lifelong ambition to write her first book, The Truth about Freda.
Ruth’s love of language, particularly French, led her to write a number of poems based on her memories of childhood, two of which have been published in the magazine, La Vie Outre Manche.
*******
Other Titles by Adele Cosgrove-Bray
Artisan-Sorcerer Series:
Tamsin
Rowan
Bethany Rose
Intimations
Fabian (due out 2013)
Short Stories:
Seaside Stories (Editor & Contributor)
Dark Tales
Spanish Jones
The Karens
A Wirral Otherkin Trilogy
Quiet Lives
Poetry:
Entering the Grove
Threads
Learn more at https://adelecosgrove-bray.blogspot.co.uk/
Seaside Stories Page 5