A Cuppa And An Armchair
A Charity Anthology
Edited by Elena Ransley
Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 Blink Books
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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A Cuppa And An Armchair: A Charity Anthology
“The Land of Noc Noc” Copyright 2011 Andrew Blair
“Who do I think I am?” Copyright 2011 Mike Norbury
“Fate” Copyright 2011 Cora Beth Carter
“A Second Chance” Copyright 2011 Gavin Hayes
“Family Fortunes” Copyright 2011 Rachel Stevenson
“A Daring Debut” Copyright 2011 Charlotte E. English
“Dirt” Copyright 2011 Gethin Morgan
“Raindrops” Copyright 2011 Michelle Payne
“Ghost Girl” Copyright 2011 Alicia Cunningham
“Must Be The Music” Copyright 2011 Alan Lloyd
“The Kalistanian Princess” Copyright 2011 Chelsea Sutherland
“Along For The Ride” Copyright 2011 Danielle Shipley
“The Healing Well” Copyright 2011 Melanie Kerr
“Dorothy” Copyright 2011 J.S. Wilsoncroft
“The Music Box” Copyright 2011 Daniel Challinor
“Conspiracy Theory #92” Copyright 2011 Skyler Luttrell
Introduction
A Cuppa and An Armchair is a collaborative venture joining writers, artists and the charity, Equipe, in a bid to raise much-needed funds.
Each page of this book has been donated, from the stories, the artwork, down to the proofreading and formatting. It is with great thanks to those involved, that we can now offer this to our readers. We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we have enjoyed creating it.
The cover design is a creation of Skyler Luttrell. Through social media, we asked for cover ideas to be submitted, and then we held an open vote. Nick Deglar kindly then offered his professional service to complete the design. We wish to offer our sincere thanks to Skyler, Nick and all of those that submitted entries.
Throughout the book you will find details of those that have contributed to the content, many of whom also helped out with proofreading, design and more. We would like to give a special thanks to Ziz York, Equipe’s coordinator, Ceri Pritchett for suggesting the idea of this book and her continued input throughout, Carol Hoare for helping out at such short notice and Leigh Gembus for accepting a challenge.
Elena Ransley
Equipe
Equipe is an international charity, which was established in 1998. Its vision is to enable and empower local people to break the cycle of poverty through education, sustainable infrastructure and business.
The charity works in 6 developing nations, India, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Tanzania and Uganda; providing help to find a way out of poverty for all the people and change the futures of these marginalised communities.
"Our main aim is to see people liberated from a life of poverty and equipped to provide for their families and invest back into their communities. Such a little can make an incredible difference - one meal a day can keep a child in school and provide them with an education; one sponsored child may go on to college and get a good enough job to fund all their siblings through their schooling." Ziz York, Coordinator, Equipe.
The projects that are being run by the charity are:
A child sponsorship programme
Orphanages
Rescuing women and young girls out of the sex trade
Supporting private and public funded schools
Feeding programmes
A children’s drop-in centre in Lapu-Lapu City for street children
Support the building of societal infrastructure – water well and tree plantations
Help sustain the wells and plantations to encourage sustainability and resilience to natural and social disasters
Equipe is the French word for team, and the charity sees itself as a team with the local people in the areas that we work. The charity has teamed up with local people who share the same vision, providing support throughout the year, along with annual visits from supporters, at their own cost, to maintain face to face contact and partnership.
UK Registered Charity Number: 1075156
Ceri Pritchett
CONTENTS
The Land of Noc Noc – Andrew Blair
Who do I think I am? – Mike Norbury
Family Fortunes – Rachel Stevenson
A Daring Debut – Charlotte E. English
Ghost Girl – Alicia Cunningham
Must Be The Music – Alan Lloyd
The Kalistanian Princess – Chelsea Sutherland
Along For The Ride – Danielle Shipley
The Healing Well – Melanie Kerr
The Music Box- Daniel Challinor
Conspiracy Theory #92- Skyler Luttrell
Table of Illustrations
A Second Chance – Lawrence Chadwick -Smith
A Daring Debut – Danielle Zwissler
The Kalistanian Princess – Jack Kempster
Along For The Ride – Darryl Robertson
The Healing Well – Brian Burke
Conspiracy Theory #92 – Skyler Luttrell
By Andrew Blair
Far away, next door, in the gap between the unpleasantness and the coving, was the Land of Nocnoc. It was small, about the size of everywhere if you're really far away, and its borders were guarded by the vague hope that nothing bad would happen. It had no natural enemies, excluding Time, Entropy and Windmills.
Every Shreeve Tuesday (named in honour of former Sheffield Wednesday manager Peter Shreeves) was Census Day in Nocnoc. All the residents gathered in the main parallelogram to be censored. The President, resplendent in his crimson negligee, strode forth onto the balcony and rummaged in his pockets for his lists. Eventually he pulled out a beer mat, on which was written the names of all four hundred thousand and sixty one inhabitants of Nocnoc. There must be, he thought crossly, a better way of organising this than in the pub the night before after everyone had run out of coins for the quiz machine. He read them, as is traditional, in the order in which he could read his wife's writing.
He hemmed. The crowd, which until this point had been scrupulously quiet, started murmuring. The sound drifted outwards from the crowd and then came back because it was warmer. Looming three-storey buildings darkened the ground of the courtyard making it hard to tell what you had stepped in, increasing the difficulty of Nocnoc's second most popular children's game. The gallows stood at the back of the crowd, swaying gently in the breeze as if it were a swing, which indeed it was during the summertime. The murmuring began to form itself into a consensus, entirely the wrong sort of census for the occasion. The President was quite annoyed. He explained this to them by leaning over the balcony and making the noises he thought a cake might make if it was malevolently sentient. This confused the people enough for the President to launch into his duties.
'This calls to semblance of order the quazongillionth census in the history of the land of Nocnoc,' he announced, 'May Eric Morecambe have mercy on our souls.'
The entire population reached for the back of their ears and tilted their ceremonial glasses up and down several times, as if slightly worried.
'The first person,' said the President slowly, 'To be...um, done today...is...Olive Acuppateathanks.'
The crowd resumed their murmurings, as a small, nervous round woman dressed like a pantomime magic carpet waded to the front of the crowd. She curtsied to the President.
'You understand the ritual?' he asked.
She nodded.
'Okay then, we will begin when you least expect it.'
Three days later the President stopped playing himself at Risk, and said 'Proceed' politely to the starving woman.
The woman glared at him as she passed a bucket back into the crowd and readjusted her dress.
'Knock knock,' she said.
'Who's there?' asked the President.
'Olive,' said Olive.
'Olive who?' said the President, gamely.
'Olive Accuppateathanks.'
'Well done dear,' said the President, and scored her off the list.
* * *
They had registered four hundred thousand and sixty one people now, but there were still forty people left in the queue. All of them were below the age of four, as the census had taken a while to perform. Along the way they had met some very interesting people, notably: General Lee Iamhilarious, commander of the armed forces; Razor Hands, the bank robber; Isidore Unlocked, the notorious burglar; and the mighty warrior, Conan the Cob.
The President regarded the slowly increasing queue of children, and on the other side of the parallelogram the pile of the dead gently decomposed, including the former President on the top. He had to remain on the top, which was causing some trouble for the peon with the pitchfork. The new President was not coping well. He did not have the patter of the previous incumbent, and spent quite a lot of the census merely staring out into the crowd, dribbling in terror. The crowd dribbled back, and the President took heart. They did like him after all, he decided, they were mimicking him and that was a sincere sign of flattery.
Coincidentally, it was also a sign of extreme malnutrition, but that was a common side-effect of censuses, and besides, the land of Nocnoc was one of fervent cannibalism. Dinners at funerals paid for themselves. After the census there would be a great feast and those who were starving would feed with gluttonous relish and bacon flavoured mayonnaise upon the scraps. The rest would go to the Palace of Thimbles and Cymbals, where the President lived with tinnitus.
Still, only one more sprog to go and then it was all done. The parent took the crying child onto the platform and raised it above his head with trembling arms.
The President prepared himself.
‘Waah,’ said the baby.
‘Knock knock?’ said the parent, desperately trying to pretend that his lips were not moving.
‘Who is it? I mean, who is there?’ asked the President, his slip drawing gasps of amazement from the crowd. This was really nail biting stuff.
‘Um…’ said the parent, ‘Red?’
‘Good, good,’ said the President, ‘Um, Red who?’
The parent froze. The parallelogram was holding its breath in anticipation. There hadn’t been a Red for many centuries, and they were all agog to see what name the parent would come up with. The President sensed the parent’s trepidation, and prompted him again.
‘Red Who?’
‘Yes,’ said the parent.
‘What?’ said the President.
'Yes, that’s him, "Red Who?"’ said the parent. ‘Hahaahaaah.’
The President gulped. The crowd did not move.
Then someone threw a shoe.
Four hours later the census was over and the man who had named his daughter ‘Red Who?’ was at the city gates with a knapsack over his knap and a kerchief on the end of a stick.
The President was reading out a decree he had found in a cupboard that largely fitted the situation.
‘And on this day, Census Day, the day of Shreeve Tuesday,’ he began, ‘We have seen fit to cast you out of this, the fair and sometimes above average city of Nocnoc, for high treason, to whit, the naming of a child in ways opposed to the sacred laws of our land.’
‘Do you have anything to say ?’ he asked the parent.
‘Sorry?’
‘Not good enough. We shall take your name and give it to your child, and henceforth you will be stricken from the records. These are the laws of Nocnoc, and to break them is an abomination.’
‘Right,’ he added, ‘Cheerio.’
‘You wazzock,’ said the parent, ‘I’m off to the Dada Plaza, or the Surreal Gambia. I’m wasted on straight down the middle thinkers like you!’
‘Silence, nameless wretch!’ said the President, ‘This is merciful indeed, compared with the exceedingly unpleasant pummelling with old shoes you would doubtless have received had you stayed.’
‘Hah!’ cried the man, walking backwards away from the city gates, ‘I can bring this city to its knees! Listen! KNOCK KNOCK!’
The people of Nocnoc trembled, but were bound by law to reply.
‘Who’s there?’ the President replied.
The parent grinned evilly, turned, and walked away from Nocnoc without ever looking back.
‘Who’s there?’ the President enquired again. He received no reply. Furious, he turned to the parent’s baby, and rounded on it angrily.
‘What did he mean?’ the President cried, ‘How can he leave the ritual there? It is impossible! We will never know who was there! Never!’
He sank to his knees and beat the ground in front of the infant.
‘Tell me!’ The President cried, ‘You, Scold Outside, inheritor of your nameless father’s name, tell me the meaning behind this!’
Scold Outside withdrew her finger from her mouth and dragged it down the President’s nose.
‘AAAAH!’ screamed the President, recoiling at the touch, ‘I don't understand! Why? WHY?’
And with one last terrible cry the President dropped to the ground and became permanently insensible. The people of Nocnoc milled around the President and Scold Outside, until one of them ran off to the records office to see if there was any record of what to do in the circumstances.
In ancient manuscripts they found their answer.
Scold Outside was proclaimed Presidentess due to her besting of the President. She was a wise and fair ruler, but her sense of humour was not as sophisticated as previous Presidents. The Land of Nocnoc became a changed place in her reign, as previous rituals of wordplay and puns were superseded by face pulling, falling over, and making farting noises by blowing on someone’s tummy.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, cherubs and tinkerbells, is how the Land of Nocnoc became the Land of Sllapstic.
####
Andrew Blair
Age: 26, Edinburgh
Andrew works in Waterstone's and writes short stories, comics, Doctor Who blogs and Den of Geek articles in his spare time (See http://niceandsnug.co.uk/ for examples). These are generally more entertaining than this bio.
Andrew Blair; a.a.g.blair@gmail.com
By Mike Norbury
It was on Wednesday 15th November 1854 that John Griffith Evans was welcomed into this world. I can’t say that I know very much about his early years but I do know that as a young man he became a carpenter on the estate of Lord Mostyn at Talacre, Flintshire.
Now, party politics in the nineteenth century were dramatically different to the present and the Catholic Mostyn family supported the Whigs (later the Liberal Party) whereas the nonconformist Welsh tended towards the Tories. John Evans was among the latter and his employment was suddenly terminated when he was thrown off the estate for inciting other workers to stand their ground against the Mostyns and demand better conditions.
At this time there was a great migration of the Welsh not only to American areas such as Pennsylvania but also towards Merseyside and the Lancashire coalfields and it was to Stubshaw Cross (known as Stupshie by the Welsh incomers), a suburb of Ashton-in-Makerfield, that John Evans travelled and worked as a carpenter at one of the local mines. He married Jane Blethyn on Christmas Day 1877.
In the official history of the Wigan area it is written: “Many immigrants came from Ireland and Wales for work in the expanding mines and cotton spinning industries. A Welsh community established on the Bolton road in Stubshaw Cross where Welsh was widely spoken and chapels and eisteddfodau supported the community.” We know that John Griffith Evans held prayer meetings at his home twice a week and at the end of each meeting the men (as women would have been at home with their children) put money into a box by the front door. These donations paid for the building of Carmel, the area’s first Welsh chapel, and now regrettably a furniture shop.
Among John and Jane’s children was Joseph Edward Evans who was born on June 6th 1892 and it is to him we must now look. Around one decade into the 20th century there was an event that changed his future. It was a Saturday afternoon and there came a knock on the door of their Bolton Road home. When the door was opened they found standing there a very beautiful, dark-haired young lady in her early twenties. She had an explanatory note for them. The “official” story for the neighbourhood was that this girl was a distant relative from near Harlech who was suffering from health problems and that her family had been advised that she would be better off in the Lancashire area. The truth was that Elizabeth Williams, a second cousin from Dyffryn Ardudwy, was pregnant. As was common in those times Elizabeth could not stay in her village as she would have brought disgrace to her family and, probably the most important factor, to the chapel! Pregnant or not, for Joseph it was love at first sight. Her baby, Robert, was born as an Evans and a short time later Joe and Elizabeth married in 1912.
It is worth pointing out, I feel, that young Elizabeth must have been terrified. She was put on a train at Dyffryn Ardudwy on the Meirionydd coast with a letter and had to make her way by railway all the way to Ashton-in-Makerfield in this far-off foreign land. It is very unlikely that she would have had good English, indeed it is more likely that she would only have been able to speak Welsh. No internet then! Little or no idea of the place she was going to! She would not have previously travelled far from her home village. She was pregnant and travelling on rural trains all the way to Lancashire. There would probably have been several changes of train and, by the time she arrived at the Borderlands, no Welsh spoken. Unimaginable! And then, once having found the address in Stubshaw Cross, she was faced with a distant family she had never met and who did not know her circumstances until they read the letter.