-AUTHOR-
PAUL HASTON
NEWS
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NEW WRITING
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Flying with the Spitfires
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Caleb knows that the decaying German bunker at Rocquaine Bay on his island of Guernsey is haunted. Samuel Vogel, his arch enemy at school, has told him. But when his Grandpa Bertie hands him a brass ring that could have saved his Great Grandpa Alfred, a Spitfire pilot, from being shot down during World War 2, and learns of the arrest by the Nazis of his Great Grandma Mary, Caleb knows he must fix things. But how?
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A sample is included below:
Chapter 1
The sound of squawking, and I scurry to my bedroom window. Sheep dogs are supposed to be intelligent, although ours seems to be the exception. In the farmyard below, the youngest of the hens has its tail caught in Twitchy’s mouth.
“Naughty dog,” I yell, banging on the window. With trousers slipped on, and before I can say ‘boo to a goose’ (as Aunt Agnes would say), I’m sliding down the banister, a useful alternative to our rickety old stairs.
A fire burns in the kitchen hearth, the smell of roasted chestnuts wafting up.
“Caleb, where’s your shirt?” Ma shouts. “You’ll catch your death---”
“Can’t stop,” I say, skipping across the granite slabs. “Twitchy!”
“Not that bloody dog, again” Ma shouts, as I crash through the back door. “She’ll have to go---".
Ma’s protest is lost in a flurry of feathers and banging gates. Like all ‘good’ border collies, Twitchy has the hens hemmed into one corner of the yard. Except that she’s supposed to be a sheep dog. Not a hen dog. And she’s not even a proper sheep dog, if truth be told. The runt of the litter, my Da supposed her too scrawny to help with the sheep on the farm. Rather than give her away, she became a hybrid, a house sheep dog. Or rather, my house sheep dog. A non-working dog that’s allowed inside. Except that Twitchy’s hardly ever inside the house. Most of the time she’s outside, herding hens in the yard. Maybe, Da got it wrong about the “too scrawny” business.
“Here,” I shout, glaring at the animal. Of course, Twitchy takes not the blind bit of notice. As cute as she is, Twitchy has a mind of her own. She’ll only do something if it suits her at the time. Quickly, I wrestle the hen from Twitchy’s mouth and herd the pack (if hens can be called a pack) back into the shed, dragging the latch bolt over its fastening.
Big brown eyes gaze at me, her nose as moist as a wet rag. Of course, she has the advantage. I’m unable to be annoyed with her for more than two seconds at a time. And she knows it.
“Come on,” I say. “Food!”
The dog’s ears flick back, her head cocking to one side. A sure sign that she has understood. Food is one of several instructions she understands, and being the most important, as far as she is concerned, is normally listened to. Twitchy is in the habit of eating three good meals a day. More than any normal dog, I’m sure. And, unfortunately, I’ve made the mistake from the get-go of insisting Ma gives her the best. None of your cheap dried kibble. Prime roast chicken is the order of the day. The sort of food that a prince might eat at a banqueting table. Strangely, the dog never seems to actually put on weight. Born scrawny, she remains at 18 months old, as undersized as you could imagine a border collie could be. ‘All skin and bone’ as Grandpa Bertie says. I suppose it’s something to do with the chasing around she does, hassling the farm yard animals, getting into mischief and playing truant whenever she feels like it!
A rumble, and I turn. Da approaches in the tractor.
“Hey, young man. Where’s your shirt,” he says, bringing the vehicle to a halt and jumping from its cabin. His boots are covered in mud, a tired looking grin across a face that is bronzed.
“Sorry, Da. The hens were squawking,” I say.
Twitchy’s head bows.
“Nothing to do with the dog, then?” Da says.
My feet shuffle on the cobblestones. “Nah,” I say, bowing my head also.
When I glance up, he is frowning. “I see. You know what that dog needs. A bit of toughening up.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I say, wrapping my leg instinctively around the animal. “You’re the one who said she is too scrawny.”
His frown deepens. “I know,” Da says. “And I’ve been regretting it ever since. Inside, you’ll catch your death---“
“That’s what Ma said,” I say, finding a grin.
“And where’s your shoes---?"
Da’s words are lost in a confusion of jumping claws and slobbery wet kisses. I re-enter the kitchen with Twitchy in hot pursuit, finding myself breathless once again!
“Hey,” Ma shouts. “Not over my nice clean floor.”
“What?” I say.
A set of muddy paw prints run across the stone slabs.
“Naughty dog,” I say, for the second time that morning.
Twitchy’s tail is between her legs. I wiggle my finger at her, but her bark only seems to make matters worse.
“Out,” Ma shouts, directing Twitchy towards the pantry door.
The dog pauses, before bolting to her crate. I run after her. “Just for a minute,” I say. “Until I get your food.”
Of course, the word ‘food’ has her darting out of her crate again, almost as soon as she has entered.
“Any chicken?” I say, rummaging in the fridge.
“That dog!” Ma says, with a sigh. “Spoilt rotten, she is.”
“No, she isn’t,” I say, knowing that she is.
With the bones extracted, the individually fingered pieces of meat are placed into her silver bowl. “There you go, Twitchy; food.”
The silver platter sits unattended on the stone slab, with Twitchy giving me that look. The one that says ‘Are you stupid? Of course, it’s food.’
“See; you’re over-feeding her,” Ma says, with a swish of her apron. “Dogs are only supposed to have one good meal a day.”
“I know,” I say, brazenly. “Breakfast.”
“And the rest!” Ma says, clattering a serving bowl out of the cupboard.
The back door opens and I decide that retreat is probably the best form of defence. Da is not usually in the best of moods when he’s been rounding up the sheep. Probably because there aren’t enough sheep dogs on the farm. And whose fault is that?
Newly finished!
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Tinker Tailor Schoolboy Spy
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A coming of age, historical fiction for children aged 9-12, based on real events behind the solving of the Enigma code during World War 2.
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Tinker’s mother works at the local radio factory. Vital to the war effort, she tells him. Apparently, people need radios to listen to Hitler’s armies rampaging across Europe. But that doesn’t explain the mysterious note he finds in his mother’s bag. Nor the appearance of Ola, the girl with the East European accent. And when his sheep dog, Fidget, leads him to strange whirring sounds coming from Hut 8 in Bletchley Park, Tinker knows he must solve the puzzle, with the survival of his world dependent upon it.
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Tinker Tailor Schoolboy Spy
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Chapter 1
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Mother ladles the porridge into a bowl.
“Here you go, young man. Keep your pecker up.”
I nod, finding a smile from somewhere. I’ve never understood what ‘pecker’ means, apart from being some reference to a woodpecker, the bird, that is. She’s been using the phrase a lot, recently. Since the accident.
Her hands rub together, as if fighting off a chill, even though the hearth is blazing.
“Tinker, you’re looking pale,” she says. “Should get out more---"
“Yes, Mother,” I say.
I’ve always been solitary, you see. Good at being alone, but rubbish with people. I’m the kid who’s inside solving puzzles whilst the others are kicking a football around the park. Often, I wish it were otherwise. That I had a brain less analytical. Less about the thinking and more about the enjoying. I’m not saying I’m brainy, of course. Far from it. It’s only that thoughts circle in my head. Like the moon around the earth. Waxing and waning. Light and dark. Without finding an end.
Mother says it’s the DNA that’s to blame. Some kids are born like this. Tinkers, she calls them. Never able to just leave things alone. Always, ‘tinkering’. Hence my name. It’s not my real name, of course. A nickname used as a baby that never went away. I don’t mind. Although having the surname Tailor does complicate things a little. Sounds a bit like the nursery rhyme the kids used to chant in the playground. You know: ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor---'
The irony is that Mother’s a bit of a tinker, herself. What with her job making radios at the factory, and all?
Father could have been a tinker. If he’d had the chance. Only he didn’t survive the early days of the war, did he? Shot down by a Messerschmitt over the channel. The English Channel. That man, Hitler’s to blame. He’s a lot to answer for. Not that I bear a grudge. Mother says I shouldn’t. Although it does affect me at times; the need to make amends. Perhaps, that’s why I throw myself into my thoughts. They’re like a refuge. As if I’m detached; outside of myself. It’s not me that’s hurting. Some sort of machine is doing the hurting for me. Funny to think, isn’t it? A machine doing one’s hurting for one. I’ve often wondered if they could do that, machines.
Think.
Feel.
Maybe that’s what shadows do; let the feelings drift away so that they don’t hurt so much?
Fidget trots up, her tongue hanging out.
“She’s hungry,” I say.
Mother’s eyes roll. “Not again. I just fed her---”
“I know, but she’s growing,” I say.
Mother rummages in the fridge, pulling out a tin of offal. “She’ll eat us out of house and home---"
Immediately, the dog’s tail wags. Like a propeller on a newly started Spitfire, I imagine.
Border collies are like that. Bundles of energy. The man from whom we bought her as a pup warned us. “She’ll need exercising,” he said, “They like something to do---”
I’ve looked it up in a book, of course. Sheep dogs like herding sheep. Even pups. But where would we keep them? The sheep. Our garden’s the size of a pin prick, and filled with plant pots. “What about the shed,” I’d suggested at the time.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mother had replied. “There’ll be no sheep…and no dog if she doesn’t learn to behave. We’ve enough on our plate---”
The thing about a puppy is that their eyes are like magic. One glance, and you’re bewitched, whatever the state of your mood. The ‘training’ had begun in earnest, for I knew there’d be no turning back, that I’d love her till the end of time. Like lost family…or the friend I’ve never had. Sheep or no sheep, therefore, Fidget became the ‘grown-up’ she now is; for better or worse; our futures fixed in a life of doggy-ish adventure.
Fidget licks her lips; the offal having disappeared.
“What now?” I say, as if she may understand.
A twinkle jumps to her eyes. Trouble is afoot in the hidey holes of Bletchley Village.
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