In 2005 I was writer in residence at Helmshore Textile Mill and Museum in Lancashire. My task was mainly to help local school children write about life in the mill in days gone by. Their work was published by the organisers – Mid Pennine Arts – in a booklet titled Kicking Leaves.

I was commissioned to write a short story as an opening piece. Part-timer was the result. It is about the children who in the nineteenth century worked long and hard all morning in the mills, and then went to school in the afternoons. It is about the horrible accidents that happened at work to those who were tired and careless. It is about the value of education and the possibility of self-improvement.

In Part-timer young Tom tells how he lost his fingers to the terrible deviler – a spinning drum with teeth of steel that ripped apart cotton and human flesh with equal speed. His teacher tells him the story of Becky, a young girl injured in a situation not too different to his own, and who is perhaps closer than he knows.

To read Part-timer, click on its title in the sub-menu.

Stories about football are a whole industry in themselves. My story Ugly Me has a lot of football in it, but it is not about football. It is about fitting in amongst your mates, and the problems of first romance.

I was particularly pleased that Wendy Cooling chose Ugly Me for this pocket-money edition, because the other contributors are giants of the genre - and four of the five are called Alan!

Wendy doubled the number of stories and published Football Shorts. Ugly Me then became the only piece of mine to be translated into French.

To read Ugly Me, click on the link of that name.