‘Write about what you know,’ isn’t that what they say?
In those ten years I spent gardening I don’t think that I dug up many thrilling stories about fuchsia or lawn maintenance or when to prune flowering currents but I did meet some fascinating people. People who sparked an idea. People who drove a story.
“These are things that you should know about Barnaby Abbott. He believes in God and he’s as tight fisted as the very devil. Barnaby is 87 and has the face of a wax death mask left near a warm fire.
Barnaby likes to be called ‘Barnaby’. He doesn’t like being called, ‘Sir’ and if you were to call him ‘Barny’ he wouldn’t respond. That isn’t to say that he wouldn’t answer to ‘Barny’, that is to say that he would never, ever speak to you again. The people who have called Barnaby ‘Barny’ have ceased to exist by his reckoning. Utterly. Barnaby Abbott is a man of principle and a principle isn’t a principle until it has cost you something. Barnaby’s principles have cost him almost every relationship he has ever had, close or distant, family, friend or foe. Most of the people Barnaby has ever met have found some way to piss him off and also it must be said, he them.
Barnaby is prickly.”
From SILVERBACK, a collection of imaginative short fiction published by Climbing Tree Books. Available in paperback or as an eBook via Amazon and other booksellers.
