MAKER OF FOOTPRINTS BY SHEILA TURNER JOHNSTON

maker of footprints

 

by

 

Sheila Turner Johnston

 

Colourpoint 2019

 

https://blackstaffpress.com/maker-of-footprints-9781780732435

Meeting him was easy. It was knowing him that burned bone.  Paul Shepherd is dangerous.  He crashes into Jenna's life like an asteroid into an ocean.  Wilful and exhausting, he stirs feelings that make her confront all that has kept her safe - and bored.  Relentless and determined, he needs Jenna with a desperation she does not understand.  Jenna discovers that, although she can try to hide from Paul, there is nowhere to hide from herself.  But, he is married.

What do you do when you discover you are not the person you thought you were?

 

 

This is a love story, but not one that runs smoothly for all concerned.  Jenna is a plain girl, a good girl and a bit boring with it.  Her boyfriend, Adam, does not have the inclination to develop their relationship in a romantic way anytime soon. 

 

Jenna’s brother Luke is a typical student, turning up frequently at Jenna’s to crash out and ponder his plan to quit Belfast for Scotland, or even Outer Mongolia.

 

Paul, Adam’s older brother, is all ego, blunt, opinionated and insufferable more often than not.  He has returned to Belfast from London with his wife of a few months, Dianne, a snobby socialite who hates the city and is determined to return to England at the earliest opportunity.  Paul has no intentions of returning to London permanently.  Dianne has to find a way to get through to Paul.  She loves her husband but not his stubbornness.  

 

Paul and Dianne meet Jenna.  Dianne is not impressed but Paul spots something in Jenna, a challenge perhaps, a project of sorts, the main plot strand of this intriguing book.  There is a kind of slow dance between the two and their relationship develops romantically.  Initially, Jenna is cautious but Paul is determined that they will be together.  His marriage to Dianne is doomed to fail.

 

The push and pull of relationships, old, current and new, give the book depth and draws the reader into caring about what happens to everyone involved, even the ones hard to like. 

 

But just when you are comfortable in the story’s groove, the book shifts gear as events turn darker and more dramatic.  Amongst other things, Paul’s superego front is not all it’s cracked up to be.

 

Sheila Turner Johnston conducts her orchestra of characters beautifully.  This is a wonderful novel, truly a page-turner residing in the upper echelons of the very best modern fiction.

 

  

BACK AND FORWARD - 2021/2022

Looking back,

there were decisions I should not have made,

there were decisions I should have made,

things I should not have said,

things I should have said,

people I should have forgotten,

people I should have remembered,

situations I should have avoided,

situations I should have arranged,

jobs I should have abandoned,

jobs I should have done.

*

Looking forward,

there will be decisions I will not make,

there will be decisions I will make,

things I will not say,

things I will say,

people I will forget,

people I will remember,

situations I will avoid,

situations I will arrange,

jobs I will abandon,

jobs I will do.

*

American professional baseball pitcher, Satchell Paige's famous quote always comes to mind at this time of the year:

"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."

And to that, I add:

"Amen, and onward."

SOME CHRISTMAS POEMS

 

Season's Greetings, friends.

From hundreds of fun Christmas poems I have written over the years.

‘APPY CHRISTMAS

To gadget geeks – Appy Christmas

To bakers – Bappy Christmas

To dentists – Cappy Christmas

To good blokes – Chappy Christmas

To audiences – Clappy Christmas

To birds – Flappy Christmas

To Tube guards – Gappy Christmas

To motor racers – Lappy Christmas

To explorers – Mappy Christmas

To babies – Nappy Christmas

To urban singers – Rappy Christmas

To boxers – Scrappy Christmas

To make-up artists – Slappy Christmas

To crocodiles – Snappy Christmas

To plumbers – Tappy Christmas

To puppies – Yappy Christmas

To video game players – Zappy Christmas

WENCESLAS WEATHER

Good King Wenceslas looked out

And did a double take,

Despite all his initial doubt,

He rubbed his eyes awake.

Brightly shone the sun that day,

Sweltering hot and sticky,

He thought as this is Boxing Day,

The forecast’s a bit dicky.

“Bring me shorts Bermuda-style,

Bring me sun tan lotion,

Bring me cola by the crate

And ice cubes by the ocean.

Bring my sunbed by the pool,

I can’t believe this weather,

I can swim around all day

In the altogether.”

Good King Wenceslas’s dream

Ended with a bump,

He fell out of his bed it seems

And bruised his ample rump,

Groggy from his accident

And dazed and half-asleep,

He gaped out through the curtain gap

To see snow six-feet deep.

SANTA IN THE GARDEN

Santa likes to dig-dig-dig,

Santa likes to grow-grow-grow,

Santa likes to rake-rake-rake,

But most of all,

Santa likes to hoe-hoe-hoe

STRICTLY CHRISTMAS

Strictly come 

Dasher, 

Strictly come 

Vixen,

Strictly come 

Donner,

Strictly come 

Blitzen,

Strictly come 

Cupid,

Strictly come 

Prancer,

Strictly come 

Comet,

Strictly come 

Dancer.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

Christmas shopping,

Christmas shopping,

Really makes me dizzy.

Why can’t Christmas

Be in June

When the shops aren’t quite so busy? 

MOOEY

Two cows talking

In the language called Moo –

“Mooey Christmas”

“And mooey Christmas to you.”

Season's greeting friends!

RIP MIKE NESMITH - A POEM, BOBBLE HAT

 In the mid-60s, my mother knitted me an almost exact replica of this hat.

Bobble Hat

Mother’s skillset expanded out of necessity,

Back in the tight money days, post-Elvis, pre-Beatles.

Alongside kitchen and other housewifery talents,

She knitted in what seemed like every spare moment,

Aran jumpers a speciality, but also

Scarves, gloves and non-military balaclavas, hats,

Especially one unforgettable hat for me,

A bobble hat, green, an almost exact replica

Of a Mike Nesmith Monkees hat, cool woolly number. 

Should have seen my face! I was a believer. Still am.

THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY (REVISITED)

The little drummer boy

Who featured in a song

From 1958

Has had to move along.

He was handy with the drum,

Even handier with the sticks,

But all that drumming took its toll,

So he retired at sixty-six.

 

BOOK REVIEW - MOVING ABOUT THE PLACY BY EVELYN CONLON

 

MOVING ABOUT THE PLACE

 

SHORT STORIES

 

By

 

Evelyn Conlon

 

The Blackstaff Press 2021

 

https://blackstaffpress.com/moving-about-the-place-9781780733104

 

 

This fine collection of short stories and a novella takes us on journeys geographically and emotionally.  The geography takes in Ireland, England, Australia, Italy, Monaco, Indonesia, Japan – adding useful background ingredients to the core stories in settings and scenery.  It all helps the reader to frame pictures and create imagery as the characters do what they do.  The emotion is in the spoken and unspoken words of people some of whom want to break free from life’s constraints, who dream of better lives elsewhere only to find that the grass is not necessarily as green as they imagined.

In one story, Hannah and her husband Simon emigrate to Australia only for Hannah to realise she is trapped in a foreign land with no immediate family and scarcely any local friends.  Her new life is one of challenges and struggles.

Violet, incarcerated in an asylum, smuggles out a letter in a bottle which washes up on a shore.  She had shot and wounded Mussolini and therefore was not considered of sound mind.  She tells the finder who she is, what she’s done and why. It is a moving outpouring.

Other stories involve unhappy relationships, new beginnings, one in particular featuring recently widowed Mary who leaves Ireland for Australia and evolves into a social activist, campaigning to improve women’s lives, and another explores turmoil after a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Museum.

So, geography, emotion as well as humanity’s foibles layer these excellent stories, and Evelyn Conlon is to be saluted for taking us on these journeys.  Some of them linger long after closing the book.  And that’s a skill not enjoyed by all writers.  Bravo.