Death on the Beach

DEATH ON THE BEACH is a collection of nine short stories and nine whimsical poems set in England, Northern Ireland, New Zealand or no set place. The lead story, DEATH ON THE BEACH, tells of Fred and Tom, who are faced with old age and a future without their long-time partners. The story is about loyalty and friendship between two WWII veterans who served together after meeting on a Normandy beach. In A RETURNING, Andrew Johnson returns to New Zealand after his mother's death. He feels remorse and sadness and discovers something surprising. GOING HOME is a story of a broken marriage and the attempt by the wife, Pat Bradley, to return home and recover her family. ANOTHER PROBLEM is a short piece about two boys, Jase and Jacko, their loss of innocence and the need to resolve an urgent problem. James Whitehouse attends his FIRST DAY at work and finds that all is not as it seems at Marsh's Foods. Colonel, The Lord Algernon MacBanbury, becomes uneasy when he meets an old wartime acquaintance, Sid Smith, in COMRADES TOGETHER. This is a playful joust between the certainty of the English aristocracy and the base cunning of the working class. A FILM STAR AND A MONKEY tells how a young Charles Masters at last meets his Hollywood dream girl, but will his dream remain unfulfilled? A lonely New Zealand teacher, Jane Clifton, accomplishes a girlhood challenge and perhaps finds out about her father in FIRST TIME. Finally, in SOLITAIRE AND G&T, Korean war hero, Ted Macdonald, loses something precious that belonged to his now dead wife, but finds something good about human nature. The nine stories are interspersed with nine whimsical poems