Iestyn Edwards is...what?

I was doing a gig in a town in North Wales.   Mair, a native of the town, had something to say to me about the amenities up the hill. Mair was teeny-tiny and gaunt, sitting by the bus window in the midst of a sou’wester.  ‘Don’t be fooled,’ she said. ‘The Old Post Office never were.’ ‘What were it as built, then?’ Sarah asked. She was long and lean with an iridescent blue rinse, sitting high in pink trainers, which she would have called daps. She clutched the fake fur collar of her puce coat, then dabbed first her left, then right, earlobe.   ‘As built,’ said Mair, 'it were a plain new house. From the off in a dip and prone to damp.’ ‘But who could make such a decision to lie about its history, then?' Mair appeared to want out of her sou’wester, straining forward. ‘Council. On behalf of tourism. You find this sort of malarkey where there isn't something to tour past by coach. Loch Ness, Imperial War Museum, birthplace of Lord Lucan.’ Sarah said, ‘But they have t...

  Rather than my mother’s pilot fish. I have always challenged Eirwen, my narcissist  ne plus ultra  mother. And, as we often must when dealing with a narcissist, I have fought to be my own shark rather than that pilot fish mooching along at the shark’s gills. NB — we have Royal Marines Commando, Stacks, to thank for that analogy. Eirwen was an unreasonable, raging, physically violent mother. I read and re-read  Charlotte’s Web . One teatime Eirwen, leering, simpering, was telling family friend Connie  Practically Bedridden  Presland how Charlotte famously spun words into her web. ‘Words such as “splendid”, “magical” and “brilliant”.’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘Charlotte spins “Some Pig”, “Terrific”, “Radiant” and “Humble”…’ Connie’s features shrunk on my behalf. Eirwen shouted at me, ‘I’ll thank you — snivelling fatso — not to question your elders and betters.’ ‘“Some Pig”, “Terrific”, “Radiant”, “Humble”,’ I repeated. ‘I beg your pardon. This is Eirwen Silcox you’re ...

                 This happened. The editor thinks it's a book of dog sitter stories waiting to happen. I am scribbling away at same...  I first house sat by default. I was a live-in safety net at the time for Olive Eynsford, a seventy-nine-year-old Bostonian suffering with alcoholism, leg ulcers and a lilac tinted backcombed afro. I had left full-time singing teaching. It was my dream to move to Deaven. Olive’s house in Lembton was only two miles along the coast. When I first met her, Olive had been very much, ‘Look at the women in this cafe. All failed schizophrenics. There’s Wendy Simons - so upper-lowbrow she thinks the Guggenheim is a song from Fiddler on the Roof. Oh, God, here’s Daphne. Talk about self-pity for having lost her one husband when some of us have got through a whole three.’ After I moved into her attic floor, she was far more: 'Iestyn, how about you give us all a treat and wear a different shirt for a change?' 'I...

                       I went to church today for St David's Day. I will go again. At Holy Trinity, Bungay, I was welcomed by a verger, known around town as being very caring and community minded. I didn't catch her name, but will be going to a Thursday meeting she holds at my friend Clare's Old Bank Cafe. She mispronounced my name as Justin, and when I told her Iestyn was the Welsh version, she went and fetched the daffodil that had fallen over in the churchyard. 'For a Welsh man on his patron saint's day.' I was also intrigued by the excellent sermon on the Nicodemus story.  The kind verger approached me a second time to shake my hand during the giving and receiving of the Peace. This thoughtfulness reminded me of something that happened some years ago now in Deaven, Suffolk.  A posse led by Lady Dawn and Annabel Williams-Smyth approached the Reverend Peter Cooper, the new incumbent of St Mary's, to ask if he woul...

The idea was we would all have a daffodil of our own nurturing to wear on St David's Day. Miss Postelthwaite presented all Year Ones (seven and eight-year-olds) at Holy Trinity Juniors with a daffodil bulb to overwinter.  I overwatered mine.  The first morning of spring term my mother rang my headmaster. ‘Iestyn's father is at this very moment walking Iestyn to school via Lower Marsh market to buy a replacement daffodil, Mr Tonge,’ she said. ‘Iestyn overwatered the bulb the school very kindly gave him to rear as a Christmas holiday project and killed it.’ At parents' evening when I was eleven, my mother told Mrs Spinoza, head of housecraft, 'Iestyn failed to sieve the flour into his homework apple crumble.' I was twelve when she buttonholed my choir master at Southwark Cathedral. 'Dr Bramma, now. Iestyn has been moonlighting, in a very low way.'  Performing the role of Sandy in a school assembly of Grease .  NB: this was in a mixed-sex school. But aged twel...

For six months in 1997 I lived in Haven House, Suffolk, as a safety-net for Lady Olive Simmonds: a seventy-nine year-old Bostonian suffering severely from alcoholism, leg ulcers and a lilac tinted backcombed afro. Suffering burnout, I had left full-time singing teaching. It was my dream to move to Deaven. Olive’s house in Lembton was only two miles along the coast.  When I had met her socially in Deaven itself the previous year, Olive had been very much, ‘Look at the women in this cafe. All failed schizophrenics. There’s Wendy Simons - so upper-lowbrow she thinks the Guggenheim is a song from Fiddler on the Roof.  Oh, God, here’s Daphne. Talk about self-pity for having lost her one husband. Some of us have got through a whole three.’ After I moved into her attic floor, however, she was far more: 'Iestyn, how about you give us all a treat and wear a different shirt for a change?' 'Iestyn, how about you visit the barber's, pronto?' 'Iestyn, how about you tread mor...

During various house-sitting stints I have been asked to comply with the following: ‘Can you please go next door and mix Lady Turner’s canary food first thing each morning? I do that for her. She’s practically blind and can’t see to get it the right consistency – dampish crumble mix.’ Righto. ‘Please let the cat watch as much as possible of The Horse of the Year Show . She’s also quite keen – but not so much – on the flat racing.’  Righto. ‘Just FYI, we have a Blessing Stone in the garden which is, by order of the council, open for the public to view. Pilgrimage, sort of idea. Marks Ley lines that run all the way to Glastonbury, it’s said. But then, when do Ley lines ever not run directly to Glastonbury? Either engage with the pilgrims or not, as you feel in the moment.'  Righto.  ‘Marian, opposite, tries to involve us in going over her silver inventory with her, witnessing. She keeps accusing her cleaner (with her for nearly twenty years, we think) of stealing. We think ...