The first of an occasional series of writing ideas . These are stories which I don’t think I could do justice to – so I hope someone reading will. Please feel free to use and adapt them as you see fit.

1 A  Seal in our Stream  Based on a real event http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8469537.stm

Elements to play with: the storm where the pup is separated from its mother, getting lost from  Belgium, being found in the stream by a family and their dog, fattening up and release. In my mind, I see a semi-factual picture book.

2  Shoes in her basket

A very elegant lady on York Railway Station, in a smart French navy suit wearing the palest pink kid gloves. Her glossy high heels were in a wicker basket  and  she clutched this to her side.

One stockinged foot was poised on the floor as though ready to run off at any moment. Who was she waiting for, why would she need to run?

3  Chalky and the Wax Crayon

Three elderly gentlemen discussing how to loosen a tank turret. 

“What’ll sort it then?” one asks, indignant his ideas don’t meet with general approval.

“Brute force and ignorance,” number two friend says.

 ‘If it comes to it, a dirty great lump hammer,” the third man says with great glee.

They talk with big gestures but use their fingers very precisely when demonstrating technique. There’s lots of sketching with a stubby pencil on the pack of stapled-together computer print outs. ‘Chalky’ has a triangular piece of green chalk in his breast-pocket. Apparently, his friend’s yellow wax crayon is used for counting track links.

What if it were not a restoration project for display-but for real? What uses might someone put their grandfather’s tank to!

4  My Special Day

A couple wed after being partners for twenty years. One has inherited a great deal of money and decides to blow it all on this  wedding. They have an expensive list at John Lewis, a trumpeter in the church, the bridesmaids have to  match down to their designer hand bags. Guests have their own corsages removed and replaced by co-ordinated ones for the photographs. J0 the bride is normally a bobbed redhead of a tomboy. She has had hair extensions, bleaching and curls. She is unrecognisable as this  meringue of a bride. Is it her? Why has she changed so much? What if it were one of your parents?

5 Overheard – imagination in overdrive

“He’s not a child. He knew what he was doing. ”

“So he is always been like it, then?”

She nods.

“But where did he get all that self doubt from?”

She shrugs then says, “It’s a good job she’s as laid-back as what she is. I couldn’t stand it!”