I await peer feedback on my last two short stories. 'Coming of Age' is the least satirical of my pieces. It contrasts the life of Eliza Augusta with Kathryn, her great-niece. Eliza Augusta is a master butcher and enjoys having the 'married women's vote' aged thirty in 1918, about a month after the end of WWI. Much later in the story we meet Kathryn, who is entitled to vote at the age of eighteen in 1979, just as Margaret Thatcher is about to lead the country. The two women have very different educational opportunities. Both are successful but only one knows how to cook a shoulder of lamb!
My final story 'Some have Entertained Angels' is based on the biblical verse '.. be kind to strangers for some have entertained strangers unawares.' It considers the reaction of a comfortably well off educational psychologist, Rachel, towards her friend and one-time neighbour, Angie. Angie falls on very hard times, takes antidepressants and suffers a fatal accident because she can no longer afford electricity in her tiny bedside - a far cry from the three bedroom house she rented next door to Rachel's comfortable Victorian villa. Rachel is full of remorse that she failed to help Angie when she needed it most. But her concern is, of course, too late.
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