Sunday, 18 February 2024

Sunday Serial: 240x70 by Gill James, 4. A New Tie 1 May 2017, a pint of mild

Introduction

This collection is a collection of seventy stories, each 240 words. They were inspired by the first picture seen on my Twitter feed on a given day.

 

It had been a while since he’d worn a tie. He tended not to, ever, now that he worked from home. But you never 

forget how to tie a tie. And it would look really smart. His son and daughter still couldn’t get theirs right. Or was it some sort of rebellion? He didn’t blame them.

He placed it round his neck, made sure that the right side hung down a considerable amount more than left, wound the right side twice over the other one and poked the leftover through the loop. How could that ever be difficult?    

It had taken him a long time to find one that exactly matched the Labour rosette. Nothing in his vast collection came anywhere near. He’d found one, though, in the medium-sized branch of a chain store in this medium-sized northern town. They should all cheer these little northern towns. Salt of the earth people lived there. Real people.

Not these Eton-messers.            

He was having none of this woman who was causing mayhem. Nor of that silly buffoon who always muzzed his hair up before interviews. Nor of that stuck up ponce who sounded like Lord Haw-Haw and had a name like that cat in the picture books written by a Holocaust survivor.

After years and years of blue he’d gone red. A good Lancastrian colour after all. And wasn't his tie a grand example? A true Labour red. He tightened the knot and admired his reflection in the mirror. 

Was it time to get the kids out of the grammar school and into the local comprehensive? Quite probably. That woman was enough to put you off grammar school education for life. Certainly.        

About the author

Gill James is published by The Red Telephone, Butterfly and Chapeltown.  

She edits CafeLit and writes for the online community news magazine: Talking About My Generation.

She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing and has an MA in Writing for Children and PhD in Creative and Critical Writing.    

http://www.gilljameswriter.com  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B001KMQRKE

https://twitter.com/GillJames

 

 

 

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