Tom Wiggins, Letter Carver & Writer

  It’s early evening.   I’m nine or ten.   I’m playing with Forget-Me-Not on a sandy beach somewhere on the English coast.   Sand is stuck to our sun-lotioned skin. We have matching white hats.  She  is five or six and dancing, spinning, splashing, throwing her hat in the air and catching it and not catching it.   Her hair is strawberry blonde, but the soft evening light is picking out more of the strawberry than the blonde.   I don’t know if this beach is real or not, or a mixture of truth and fiction, of beaches we’ve been to and not been to or maybe just real ones set aside for the future. This is one of many holidays our families spend together.   Sometimes our parents are out of eyeshot but within earshot, other times  within eyeshot and out of earshot.   Never neither.   Always either/or.   But where are they now?   It’s a question we don’t ask.   We are mesmerised by the tide.   Splashing ankle-deep, ...

I had this line in my head.  ‘I want to get to the heart of how you feel.’  Couldn’t stop thinking about it.  Didn’t know what to do with it.  If I played an instrument, I might’ve used it in a song.  Written it, recorded it, played it to an audience who all spontaneously burst into tears because it was so damn beautiful.  Wouldn’t need to shower when I got off stage.  Cleansed by all the people who love me.    Maybe I’ll use the line one day.   Put my arm around somebody’s shoulder or hold their hand and I say that line with so much compassion that they do open up.  Didn’t even need to sing it.  Maybe it’ll remind me of this moment as the rain pitter-patters on the cabin roof.      Today the rain is a blessing, yesterday the rain was a curse, the weather can wallop a wallet, or pickpocket a pretty old purse.   A snail travelled over my shoe last night.   It left a slimy trail. ...

Before I met your Mum, I was deeply in love with a young woman called Alice. Alice was a TRU-D. This mattered to some people but to most decent people it didn’t matter at all. My favourite teacher from primary school was a TRU-D, my Dad’s best friend was a TRU-D. Alice was beautiful, she was creative, she was funny. She liked the same pre-3s that I liked. Films way back when. Films that had almost been deleted in that war. We quoted them to each other all the time. She made me watch the ones I hadn’t seen and I made her watch the ones she hadn’t. On our third date, I offered my arm at a right angle and she took it. We were walking through town and she motioned me over to a bench and we sat down. She said she wanted to tell me something and I could tell it was big because her voice cracked with emotion. That was the moment she told me she was a TRU-D. But I could tell that wasn’t all. It’s 2123, she said. And I’m 23 next Tuesday. It was her way of telling me she was bor...

 

Francesca Finch opened a tin of clear wood varnish with the end of an old spoon. She looked over to her daughter. She was lying on her front on the living room carpet looking through old photograph albums. Francesca expected questions but didn't receive any. She'd returned to work two days after her Dad had died. The news had got to her boss and she sent her home with three weeks of compassionate leave on full pay. 'Take more if you need to,' her boss had said. 'You've more than earnt it.' Bunny sat up and watched her Mum varnishing a stick back chair in the middle of the kitchen. She had her curly blonde hair in a ponytail and had changed into what she called her hobbyshop dungarees. She was always pulling things out of skips. The bike Bunny rode came from a skip, the desk in her bedroom came from a skip. 'I'm not having four perfectly good chairs go to the tip,' her Mum said. 'It's elm wood. Made before a disease killed most ...

I met your folks at a church in St Albans.  Moon warned me they'd be quirky.   'Quirky how?' I asked.   'They're theatre people,' he replied.  He winked, gave me the church address and his business card and sent me on my way.   I'd loaded the van the day before.  Headstone, concrete shoe, sack truck, wheelbarrow, fixing kit.  Double-checked for things that are easy to forget.  Everything secured.  Okay, good to go. Your Granddad's grave was near the east end of the church.  It was marked with a little plaque and I set the wheelbarrow down next to it and began unloading the spades.   There was chatter and the squeaking of chairs and the blowing of instruments from inside the church.  Then all of a sudden, after a brief silence, the interior erupted with music.  A brass band flew into a rendition of Abba's Take a Chance on Me.  The bottom of the stained glass window was about a foot higher than eye level so I ...

 I want to tell you about something that happened today while I was doing some shopping in Chipping Norton.  After a tour of the charity shops, I walked past a young woman selling The Big Issue.  I always try to buy The Big Issue whenever I see a vendor and I told her that I would need to draw some money out but that I’d be back with cash.  I went into Sainsbury's to get some groceries and withdrew £10 from the ATM outside.  I crossed back over the road and bought the £3 magazine (£1.50 of which will go to her) and gave her £2 extra as a tip.  She said that magazine was only the third one she’d sold that day and by this time it was around lunchtime.  I asked her if she was hungry and she said yes, and that she hadn’t eaten all day.  I said I’d be popping into Café Nero and asked if she wanted anything.  To her credit, she knew exactly what she wanted.  She asked for the chorizo slices with the bread and the cheese that comes in the box....

Please check out my friend Simon's blog, The Glass Walking-Stick  where he's also written a post on his Top 3 Teen Punk Songs.  Thanks to him for accepting my writing challenge, which I pitched to him a week ago.  I had a lot of nostalgia-filled fun writing this and I can tell from his post that he had great fun writing his.  So without further ado, here it is...  In the process of thinking and writing about this blog post, I’ve been reminded just how important your teenage years are.  You pick up hobbies and interests, sometimes influenced by your friends’ hobbies and interest but sometimes through your own exploration of your own likes and dislikes and you go on a journey with it.  These years can be turbulent, confusing, messy, but the turning-over of the ground beneath you is perhaps what makes the teenage landscape so fertile for growth.   I’m always reminded of this at work.  The workshop is next to my boss’ house and three of his ...

My boss provided the introduction. He asked me whether I'd read any of Saki's short stories after he’d read a very short story of mine about a talking ostrich called Belinda who lays garlic dips.  It was one of those crazy little dream-stories I've always really liked writing.  I wrote it with craziness and surrealism in mind.  I wanted to be a bit weird for weird’s sake.  Weird doesn’t take itself too seriously and this leads to a sense of freedom.  This gives them a bit more snap, crackle and pop than if I was writing something a bit more serious.   What I’ve learnt over the course of this year is that people like weird.  Or at least the sort of people I like like weird.  When I'd showed my boss that story, I was worried that he’d be a little bamboozled by it.  But regular readers don’t get bamboozled easily and my boss is a regular reader.  What actually happened was that he found it quite normal – normal within the construction...

Last night I dreamt you ordered a pepperoni pizza.  It came with seven garlic dips.  Me: Why do we need seven garlic dips?  You: Because I like garlic dips.  And I don’t think this is going to be enough.  I’m going to order more.  Me: More?  You: Yes.  I like dipping my pizza in garlic.  I think 777 should do it.  Me: You’ve lost it.  You’re going to order 777 garlic dips?  You’re not even going to eat the seven we’ve got here.  You:  Chill out, Tom.  I’ll pay for it.  Me:  Okay, but you have to get the delivery man back and explain to him why you want 777 dips.  You stuck your head out the window and called him back.  Then there was a pecking at the door.  You opened it and the same delivery man was there but this time he was sat on an ostrich.  You: I’d like to order 777 garlic dips please.  Me: I’m so sorry she’s placing such a big order.  Delivery man: That’s okay....

every lost ring, every lost glove, every lost smile, every lost love, every lost wallet, every lost purse, every lost blessing, every lost curse, every lost thing goes to a museum, straight to the museum it goes, every lost thing goes to the museum, straight to the museum it goes.

A man in the training station waiting room blows his nose with a handkerchief.  He's trying to think of the name of the film starring Jim Carey in which everything is artificial.  I want to say The Truman Show.   The man he's speaking to says he doesn't think it's the sort of film he'd watch.  Maybe it's a trick question because every film is artificial. He uses the word salubrious to describe Oxford Station.  I have to look the word up.  I've never been so I'm looking forward to a fully salubrious experience.  If I ever used that word in a conversation, I think I would take my time over it.  Spend at least three times longer saying the word salubrious than I would another word of the same length.  Sal-uuuuu-bri-ooous.  It seems correct to say it like that.  Like saying Wales in a Welsh accent.  Way-ells.  Or Newcastle with the castle spoken quickly and given much more emphasis than a southerner would give it: new- C...

I’d been praying to The Goddess of Splendid Dryness all week.  We all knew about The God of Rain.  He’s been watering Those Mortals Down There for most of 2020.  He was boring us.  He’d outstayed his welcome and he knew it.  This has resulted in park run cancellations.  Many of them.  We’ve had to find our 5k fixes elsewhere, or otherwise had to forgo them altogether!  But The Goddess of Splendid Dryness had the cunning plan of sending The God of Rain off on a wet weekend of white water rafting.  And it was done: she blessed us with the sort of splendid dryness that befits the Goddess of Splendid Dryness.  Chipping Norton School remained resolutely off the cancellation list.  We would have our local 5k fix.  Everyone was happy again.  Hooray! After a three-week absence, Chipping Norton School park run was back on.  Today was their eighth park run and the third that I’ve attended,  but it was the fi...

Last year I set myself the goal of running under 20 minutes for 5km.  It thought it'd be a nice thing to aim for - and it was.  It really was.  But it's the setting of the goal that's 'nice'.  'Nice' describes the way you tell your friends and family that you've got this goal.  'Nice' describes a hope, a desire.  'Nice' describes the pre-action.  'Nice' describes the theory.  'Nice' fails to describes the way you have to put that desire to work.  It's too easy an adjective to take with you on the cold, wet winter runs.   My first 5km park run was on the 19th of January .  I ran 23:50 with my brother in Coventry.  My personal best in February came at the Gloucester North park run and I ran 23:34 - and that was on grass.  Then a great leap forward came at the end of March .  I ran 21:52 at Gloucester North again.  In April I ran 19 times - the most I've ever run in one month.  The training paid off...

It's 10:49pm and I'm led in bed with a hot water bottle stuffed down the front of my dressing gown.  It's cold and wet outside and I'm sick of the mud.  Storm Ciara made its way through Oxfordshire on Saturday night, tearing the guttering off the front of the cabin as it did so.  Thank you very much.  You're welcome.  I'm sending Storm Dennis over next week.   Delightful.  Tell him that the guttering around the back still requires removal.  And while he's at it, he might as well take the roof off.    The wind turned bitter when we saw the back of Ciara.  The sort of bitterness that gets into your bones and stays there.  There's nothing worse than rain and a bitter wind.  They're troublemakers together and they're troublemakers apart.  This is the time I yearn for signs of blossom amid long and unfriendly spells of gunmetal grey.  I dream of Spring doing the Haka against the quivering cold squelchy mess of Wi...

I was introduced to Slow Club near the end of 2014 while training as a stonemason at Bath College.  I liked them, but it wasn't love at first listen.  I remember watching  Gareth from The Office star in one of their music videos  and being as underwhelmed by it as he was by his ride on the Ferris wheel.  ‘Giving up on Love’ is early Slow Club and I sort of liked it, but at the time it sounded like a song I'd hear on an advert containing twenty-somethings pretending to be teenagers as they got ready for a night out.  It was a song I'd enjoy while the advert lasted but one that I would fail to look up.  But I stuck with them because the friend who provided the introduction also liked Joanna Newsom - and us Newsom fans have to stick together. The song featured on ‘Yeah So’, Slow Club’s 2009 debut album, but a cutesy advert-friendly band they were not.   They weren’t about to let the end of the decade swallow them up.   They were in the proc...