These Pages Sing: Summer Holiday (Summer 2025)

THESE PAGES SING WELSH LITERARY MAGAZINE Helen Cook. Lloyd Edwards. Manda Eliot. Angela Graham. Sheila Jacob. Lesley James. Siân Jones. Elizabeth Lockwood. Nat Phillips. Sue Regan. Eluned Smith. Mair Jones. Rachael Llewellyn. Tess Powell.

SUMMER 2025 | ISSUE 04

THESEPAGESSING.CO.UK

Table of Contents.

POETRY

Helen Cook Whitsun Swim Lloyd Edwards One Day of Summer Manda Eliot The tug of Limeslade Angela Graham ON RATHLIN Sheila Jacob Bringing Rhyl Back Home To Birmingham Lesley James Naturist beach, Canary Islands Year 6 Summer Homework Siân Jones Tabancos Bar, Spain Elizabeth Lockwood Barometric Pressure Nat Phillips Sol Invictus Sue Regan That Summer of ‘76 Eluned Smith golden rain

Perry Wyatt Chief Editor Cori SmithPimlott Short Fiction Editor Tom SmithPimlott Cover Designer

SHORT FICTION Mair Jones Ar Lan y Môr - By the Sea Lesley James Scent Uncle Jonny’s Wife Rachael Llewelyn Operator Induction Tess Powell Sweat and Pancakes

WHITSUN SWIM HELEN COOK

A sly sun persuades us to take the steep cliff path to the flat beach.

Waiting sea extends its invitation, freshly laundered foam frilling repeated breakers, seaweed tumbling.

Undressing clumsily beneath towels, struggling into last year’s costume, we run shrieking into the shallows, our throats gulping in the shock, hands like oars pulling the cold away.

Blue is a conniving colour.

Bravely we leap the rollers until older brother dips his head, splutters up to be admired.

Then the long run back to the rocks veins a purple roadmap beneath skin.

With tepid tongue we lick snot and salt away, prise sand from gritted teeth; limp sandwiches and thermosed tea silence our racket of shivering.

An all-over tingling of warming up makes us want to go roaring in again.

Helen Cook is a retired teacher who has taken up writing since having the time. She writes poetry mainly, graduated with an MA in Creative Writing in 2023 and has recently had her first collection, A Cloth of Sounds, published. She lives in the Vale of Glamorgan.

ONE DAY OF SUMMER LLOYD EDWARDS

I am lying supine staring at an endlessly blue sky Whisps of clouds float and mingle A distant squabble of children's voices Tossed by the breeze Interrupting this calm Summers day My hands have become wrinkled My fingers feel like seaweed How long have I been lying here?

Floating under that blazing Midday star Now slowly being obscured by Cirrus clouds Opaque, darker, generating water. Closing my eyes I try to ignore them.

Then a chill air develops that raises tiny hairs on my skin Soon droplets turn to stinging shards Bouncing off my body like silver tears I stand up and wade with a sad resignation towards the beach Turning to witness a flock of Gulls hovering over the water, squabbling like children The mixture of wet and dry sand engulf my feet gradually until they resemble clogs Weighing me down as I retreat to my house Hair matted like rats tails, salt encrusted and dishevelled Nature's enigmatic weather sculpts everything in its path Leaving me to dream selfishly of a cooling bath Where I will revisit my supine position once more

Lloyd works mainly with poetry exploring the many nuances of human nature, including it's psychological and responsive facets.

THE TUG OF LIMESLADE MANDA ELIOT We play the Penny Falls in the amusements clang, slot machines rattling, jangling coins and tinny tunes on Mumbles pier near the spangly walls of Cinderellas, where I danced barefoot in sequinned skirts.

You take my hand up the steep hill, cobbles shifting beneath us their rough edges, wet with the breath of the ocean. We climb to the view, where sky breaks into sea and pools of sand rise between jagged crags.

The beach is empty, ours. Gulls circle as we clamber across rocks, your bucket fills with pebbles, shells, your laughter on the salt air. We splash in the snatch of the tidal cove, your little jelly shoes are sucked away.

Lifted to my shoulder, you ride towards the disappearing beach, backing over stony spears to safety, above the bay. Barefoot, toes clutching the warm grass, we watch the lighthouse blink into the sun.

Manda Eliot is a Carmarthenshire poet who enjoys spoken word events and walks along the Gower. She has been published by Poetry Wales, Dreich, ASP Literary Journal and Panoply.

ON RATHLIN ANGELA GRAHAM

I didn’t know that the sea’s a lathe till that hot afternoon on the island when I watched it turn and turn – from its flat, flexing sheet – a corkscrew shaving of liquid chrome from right to left along its very edge; a sinuous, silver message, on repeat, reminding me how vast its riches are, how much we need them.

Angela Graham is from Northern Ireland. She is a finalist in the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2025. Poetry collections: Exposure (coming 2026) and Star, 2024 from Culture And Democracy Press; Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere, 2022. Short story collection, A City Burning, 2020 Seren Books (Edge Hill nomination). She is Welsh-speaking, an awardwinning film maker in Wales (Oscar-entrant, BAFTA Cymru-nominated screenwriter et al). angelagraham.org

BRINGING RHYL BACK HOME TO BIRMINGHAM SHEILA JACOB

Souvenirs crowd Mum’s shopping bag.

Three pink sticks of peppermint rock, jar of striped humbugs, box of all-butter fudge, pottery sugar bowl wrapped in her cardigan.

I cradle beach treasures while the Bowen’s coach swerves, sways, wheels away from the ocean for another year.

Dad helps me balance the bucket on my lap, reckons I should rinse the best, unbroken shells, make a nice display on my bedroom windowsill, view them again on a winter’s night.

He smiles, holds one

against my ear. Listen; now listen.

Sheila Jacob was born and raised in Birmingham. She moved to Wales with her husband and baby daughter in 1974 and has lived there ever since. Her debut pamphlet, a tribute to her Brummie heritage, was published with Yaffle Press in 2024. She is working on her first full collection.

Naturist beach, Canary Islands LESLEY JAMES

The flowers are naked, embroidery spindly on pathways and dune tracks, sparse January rain fed them moments of life.

The tourists are naked save sunhats and sunscreen Marlboros and tablets, flipflops and beach balls and windbreaks, cell-phones in hand and he is naked save sunglasses, save surf shoes, turning his body aside, deft so his flanks hit the breakers, brave in each battering wave. In his hand, her hand.

The practised tai chi of bathing in each other’s spray, the way her scrubbed toes splay, unhinged in the edge-tide sand.

Will he make the same fluent dent in the bed as he does in the clear-as-gin sea?

Lesley James was awarded a place on Representing Wales 2024-25, Literature Wales’s flagship programme for under-represented writers. She gained a Big Welsh Rhyme time commission from Book Trust Cymru, and was shortlisted for the Borzello Prize. She was also shortlisted for a UK Very Short Story award by LoveReading UK and was runner up in the Wildflowers poetry competition. Lesley has work in Afonydd/Rivers (Arachne), Bold (Broken Spine), Cardiff 75(Parthian) and journals including New Welsh Review, Spelt, Black Iris, iambapoet. Lesley’s chapbook A Walk With Scissors is published by Infinity Books UK.

Year 6 Summer Homework LESLEY JAMES

We went to Tenby to visit Tadcu like we always do.

The different thing this year was that Tadcu* came home to live with us.

In Tenby we walk a lot. We like that. Tadcu says he’s the outdoor type. I’m not sure I’d like an indoor type of grandad.

We collected sticks on the beach for lighting a fire You’re never too old to pick up sticks Tadcu says and he teaches me interesting words.

This time I remembered kindling and he forgot.

I also remembered that echinoderms are starfish.

Tadcu showed me how to bundle up the bits of wood in handfuls with string. He said Your little fingers are nimble so I tied all the knots.

And then he called me a good old stick. It means you’re a great kid, kind kid. I said Am I a kind-ling? and we laughed.

We went for chips in Fecci’s. Tadcu pretended he couldn’t remember the quickest way home from North Beach but I did.

I know I’ll miss going to Tenby in the holidays but never mind, because from now on Tadcu and me can pick up sticks together every day if we want.

Sometimes he calls me by my Mam’s name, but that’s OK because he says I am a chip off the old block.

* Welsh word for Grandad

TABANCOS BAR, SPAIN

SIÂN JONES

The sun—low and languid— poured molten gold through the narrow seam of a peeling apartment block and the squat, fluorescent Mercadona.

Its light thick and honeyed, stretching long, lazy shadows across the rumbling, slow-moving traffic.

There was no careful choosing, only the final, sun-bleached table, wedged beside a rust-stained oil drum now turned flowerpot.

Its thirsty blooms cascading, marking the blurred frontier between dusty bar and sleeker café next door.

The plastic chairs, once bone white now wore soft grime of seasons past, wobbled in the littered gutter— fallen leaves, cigarette butts, a crushed receipt, all pressed into the sun-softened tar of the appropriated Carrer Major, claimed inch by inch, through falling shadows.

No menus, no service— just the rhythm of routine.

I rose and ambled up to the scuffed, sticky bar, palming the smooth, amber-grained wood rubbed dull by years of elbows, rings, and the idle tapping of sunburned fingers.

Around me, sticky, humid air hummed with tobacco breath— gravelly greetings rasped low, hoarse jokes coughed out, as thunderous laughter cracked like brittle breadsticks, ricocheting off ochre walls, thick with salt, sweat, and stories told again.

Cold bottles in hand, I returned, to the chair that rocked beneath me— but the moment held still.

Exhaling slowly, savouring the final fading warmth, like amber light slipping softly through my skin, it settled deep and golden.

Siân Jones is a new creative writer based in Cardiff. A proud Welsh writer, she is inspired by the natural world, shifting atmospheres, and the textures of lived experience. Her work explores the quiet details of place and feeling. Though new to the craft, she is passionate about developing her voice and sharing stories that connect with others.

BAROMETRIC PRESSURE ELIZABETH LOCKWOOD

You only have eighteen summers with your children, make them count These posts keep appearing on my feed And repeating in my mind Your child only gets one childhood I’m drowning these thoughts in the shallow tide But they just keep jumping out Will they remember how blue the sky was How the sun sparkled on the waves This pressure to be more than, better than Constricts on the inside The perfect summer holiday exists, I know, I’ve seen it online Be your best self for your children Make their childhood magical Do more, have more Be more Will they remember how the sand felt under their feet How the shells felt in their closed fists Your voice becomes their inner voice So keep it light, keep it unnaturally bright One mistake may mess them up for life

The internet is dangerous, their school is dangerous, the streets are dangerous, even your home is dangerous Your vigilance, your high alert, your guard must never be off Will they remember how the waves crashed How their laughter cascaded Were our parents like this Worried about everything and worried about nothing Intrusive thoughts bouncing off walls Because it didn’t seem like they were What you crying for, you silly girl Don’t be a tattletale Will they remember how the ice cream melted faster than they could eat it How the sweetness satisfied their anticipation The days are long but the years are short You’re having so many big feelings right now The sand is slipping through my open hand I’m assigning each thought, each memory, each guilt-inducing meme, each snapshot, each post, to individual grains And watching as they drift away

Elizabeth Lockwood is a writer interested in the duality of life. Of how happiness and sadness coexist and how grief informs and changes our realities. She has written three collections of poetry, studied English Literature for seven years, is a mother of five, and lives by the sea in Carmarthenshire.

SOL INVICTUS

NAT PHILLIPS

Summer’s herald trumpets loud As it enters hot on Spring’s heels.

The sky exchanges pale dawns With sea-green sunrises, The pallid canopy transforms Into puffy cream clouds.

Crowds gather on the sand, Scolding and grainy, Like a desert of ash.

Waves crash and splinter Against the pebbles, Hot as coals.

Shoals of people congregate in groups, Erecting castles, kicks crashing them down.

The musical harbinger signals, Wielding frozen flames on wafer staves, As dove-white vultures descend, Scavenging amongst the litter.

Glittery foam creeps along the shore, Shrouding all it consumes, Before receding, revealing its beneath; Crystal shells, patterned, ornamental, Torn, soggy flags of seaweed slithers out, Grasping with limbs slathered in slime.

Time sails onward As the sea infiltrates further into The land, swallowing castle ruins, Flooding child-sized mines, the sun’s Radiant blaze dimming gently under the Horizon into dusky lantern light.

Starting his Ph.D in Creative Writing in 2023, Nathaniel Phillips immediately began volunteering for the Cultural Institute through its internship opportunities programme.

Nathaniel kicked off his studies at Aberystwyth University where he achieved his Undergraduate and Masters degrees, both in Creative Writing. Though an avid reader of all genres, he has a preference for Sci-Fi and Fantasy with a mix of Speculative and Psychological fiction. During his time at Neath Port Talbot College, Nathaniel had a poem and a piece of flash fiction published in the 2017 collections for Busta Rhyme and Welcome to Wonderland.

That Summer of ‘76

SUE REGAN

Remember Barry, back then?

All of us teenagers, all of us grown. Knowing.

Draped over waltzer cars, Calling for candy floss, chips, kisses Make it quick.

Heat still hanging in a navy sky After a long day of sun and swim.

Those screams, sharp, from the highest rides Way above, daring over dread And fairy lights blinking, coloured constellations.

While that heavy air settled on the bay Pressed us all into thin ham, white bread.

Crisps. And sticky orange pop That warm wasp-trap.

We took cider, you and I, onto the sand Found a dark space, got tipsy There was a clumsy hug, a laughing tumble Then there you were Your mouth on mine, firm My hands grasping air, finding you.

You felt like sunstroke, right then, Sudden. Hot. Rushing As we rose and fell, the tide sliding in The arms of Whitmore Bay reaching out Around us, you and me gasping like sewin, Held in the salty cradle.

Then soft, nestling as young gulls will, Nudging close.

Fairground shrieks, adult shouts, all now a galaxy away.

Sue Regan was born in South Wales, with her childhood punctuated by the Flat Holm foghorn. She is still drawn to the sounds of the sea, and writes about longing and connections. Recently, she has been encouraged to share her writing with others, and to read at local events. In 2024, she had poetry published for the first time, at Diamond Twig, in Dreich, and in These Pages Sing.

golden rain ELUNED SMITH The golden rain on her back Droplets for rose lips to bloom Run fuel to zero on an island track On the route back to her room Line dancing between us blurs With your cherry cheeks alight In my mind not yours but hers Holding my thoughts at night Turning over, I feel the heat As she burns only inches away We fall under the same sheet Can stars shine in the day?

Tear through Georgian streets An ear feels your whisper Not as quiet as feelings I keep Secretly sweet but never bitter Our arms around each other Tangling on dance floors Lust for you undercover Never lessens but I want more

Eluned is a writer from Carmarthen who often performs her poetry across South Wales. She was recently published in the bilingual anthology ‘Afonydd’ for Welsh rivers. Her work focuses on themes of nature, queerness and identity.

AR LAN Y MÔR

BY THE SEA MAIR JONES

Ar lan y môr mae rhosys cochion…* Elin felt the millions of grains of orange and yellow between her toes as she stepped carefully along the border to the wet mud. She eyed up her own toenails, newly painted red, for the eyes of beach strangers who could become friends or lovers, on her single holiday away from her grey home.

She hadn’t gone far, but she had gone. Escaped. To somewhere where nobody knew her, where she could shed her previous expectations, responsibilities, and regrets…

The sun lowered on the horizon, making multicoloured patterns along the sky. Pinks and reds and oranges.

She squinted up to the light through the long, brown tendrils of her hair, through the sand grains now like dandruff. They were all over her, actually.

But it didn’t really matter now. They’d always had a love/hate relationship, but now she wanted to feel it everywhere, as if this was the last time.

She eyed the waves, the seafoam edging closer, invitingly.

Ar lan y môr mae lilis gwynion…

A voice interrupted her reverie. She gasped, trying to hide that she nearly jumped as she turned around to face her.

“You okay?” Nearly meaningless words at this point, she’d heard them so often, but the way she asked, as if she actually cared. Old words from an old society. It was the thought that mattered. There was a slight concern in her voice. As if it really did matter.

They didn’t even know each other’s names, but they knew each other. The only other girl like her here, whom she’d seen on the beach every day for however many days and nights she’d been. It always seemed like she appeared out of nowhere and sometimes even disappeared the same way, too.

In what way she was like her, she wasn’t even sure. But they were the same.

She was a dream, especially hazy now as Elin looked up at her on the shore from having been watching the sunset.

“Yeah,” she answered and smiled, through cracked lips, she now realised. She tried to be subtle as she reached for her lip balm in her tote bag, which seemed to carry all of her earthly possessions at this point.

“Walk with me?” She, the other girl, asked. It was some Northern English accent that she had, Elin guessed, but she wasn’t that good with accents. But she knew that she was not from here either. Had also escaped, perhaps, to this refreshingly isolated Welsh beach, away from the other ones that the holiday makers and second-home owners coveted so much. Locals visited this place too, but now it was just hers, and hers. Theirs.

She reached up for the other girl’s hand, which was outstretched in invitation.

Holding hands with another girl hadn’t even been something she’d ever done before - before this nameless girl appeared in her life, as if out of nowhere.

They walked in step with each other, naturally for them now.

She may not know where she came from, what she did every day for a living wage, what car she drove —if she even drove —those things that had mattered every day in her previous life. But she knew what mattered here - her rhythm, her voice, the feeling of her fingers entwined with hers… She probably even knew the contents of her bag by now.

Elin knew how she swam, how her dark hair stuck to her scalp when wet, how she danced with her arms above her head, and how her arms felt around her waist.

Ar lan y môr mae ‘nghariad inne…

They sat on the rocks as darkness fell around them, still watching the colours in the sky. Elin rested her head on her folded arms over her knees, watching Her, who leaned back on her elbows, her long legs splayed and reaching the rippling waters before them, surrounded by dark green seaweed. She smiled at Elin when their eyes met.

“Here,” she said, finally breaking the peaceful silence. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out something and handed it to Elin. It was a hairclip in the shape of a seashell.

Elin smiled genuinely and thanked her.

“I found it and thought of you… How your hair’s always hiding your beautiful face,” she half-joked.

“Oh, you’re a star,” Elin said as she pulled her hair back, which had indeed been partially obscuring her face, and put the hairclip into place, to the right of her face, the side which faced the other girl. She showed it to her, framing it with her hands and modelling for her, and they both laughed freely. Her laugh was one of the most beautiful things Elin had heard in… she didn’t even know how long.

“Ti’n seren,” Elin sighed.

“What?” she laughed, but asked with genuine curiosity.

“Ti’n seren. You’re a star,” Elin explained.

“Seren,” she repeated, emphasising every consonant. “I like that.”

Elin reached for Seren’s hand, pulling her close and whispering into her mouth, “Seren.” Like a christening.

Whoever she’d been before, this is who she was, to her, in this moment.

And when they kissed, truly nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered. The outside world, the fireworks ahead, all paled in comparison to what they had. Them.

It might be the end of the world, but all that mattered was them.

In each other’s arms, they were deepening into the ground now, into the millions and millions of grains, and naturally, they wrapped around each other.

Seren liked to play with her skirts, holding them up in the air and watching them fall again. Elin liked it when she did that, too. It was mesmerising until they were thrown away onto the rocks, strewn next to Elin’s t-shirt.

Elin kept her seashell in her hair, keeping her hair out of her face as she gazed down at Seren.

Before, she would never have done this here. Too worried about the people who might see, the sand getting everywhere, or just that it was not appropriate.

But it didn’t matter now.

Not even as they lay together completely unclothed.

Why would it matter now? They looked at each other and knew they were both thinking the same thing, undeterred by the need to reach for their clothes.

When they kissed again, they knew that it would last for the rest of their lives, as the warheads flew over their heads, illuminating the night in every colour, in the brightest lights they’d ever seen, even with their eyes closed, until they could even feel it through their bodies and bones. And then all was black.

Yn cysgu’r nos a chodi’r bore.

*‘Ar Lan y Môr’ is a Welsh folk song, which can be translated into English as: “On the seashore are red roses, On the seashore are white lilies, On the seashore is my love Sleeping at night and rising in the morning.”

Mair Jones (she/they) is a writer and historian from Lampeter, Ceredigion, who runs the blog Queer Welsh Stories, has recently been Cymraeg Editor for Poetry Wales and also helps to run Queer Book Club Swansea and Llyfrau Lliwgar Aberystwyth (a bilingual queer book club). She writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction, in Welsh, English and bilingually, and has appeared in anthologies and zines like 'O Ffrwyth y Gangen Hon' and 'Proud Writing'.

SCENT LESLEY JAMES

You climb the bobbly metal steps of the fat bus, and smell fun. People make jokes.

People laugh. There’s raucous singing for goodness’ sake. And I can join in. It’s allowed. I crave the physical sensation of being tired around the ribs from laughing: Tenby provides.

Auntie Ollie, not a real auntie, but everyone’s auntie, the woman who runs the trips, lets me get on with it. I like sitting alone on the bus, listening intently to the grown-ups' chatter and their singing, and reading my book to fend off travel sickness. It’s a long way to Tipperary, and the roads are winding.

Nothing goes wrong in Tenby. Except for that one time my mother made us matching beach dresses out of chunky-towel fabric, or that time she said olive oil and vinegar was a good suntan lotion and burned me to a crisp. I’m sent to Tenby on my own after that.

Oh, Tenby.

If it’s sunny, we go to the beach. If it’s drizzling, we go to the beach. We paddle in the sea. Auntie Ollie sets me free to hunt for see-through shrimplets around St Catherine’s Rock. We swim in the sea. I get cold and shiver. I dress in my cardi and socks to warm up.

We get the boat to Caldey Island, shepherded by bobbing seals, to see the monks and smell their perfumes in the gift shop. My mother’s voice echoes: Cheap rubbish scent. Don’t you dare bring that stuff home. But I do. I take a deep breath in: in one single fragrance, I smell summer like I have never smelled it before. I try to make it my gift to her, share my happiness.

Away from the pub’s microclimate, my cigarette-filled home, I breathe clearly. The air is knife bright. It carries smell, like gin carries the lemon zest spritz in a good martini.

Tenby has a clear smell. Ice cream in a tub smells waxy; ice cream and a flake in a ninety-nine smells like a baker’s shop. There’s the petrol-y exhaust of the ice-cream van and the singed-out belch of its fridges. Water in rock-pools smells of black seaweed with bobbles you can pop, and seaweed smells of iodine from the first aid kit. Limpets smell of wee and salty slime, and St Catherine’s Rock smells of rusty metal.

The cave-tunnels in the rock vibrate with the niff of mould and wrongdoing and stale fruit juice and dead leaves. The sea smells of life. Green life, prawn life, fish life. It does not smell of gritty John West salmon sandwiches on soggy bread. It smells of salt. And salt smells like me.

Before we leave for home, there’s the smell of hot oil and potato starch, while we wait for chips and for the bus-trip men to come out of the pub. I dream of a vanilla Snowman with a black top hat from Fecci’s Ice Cream Parlour. Then I see them bring out a Snow Woman! The closest I come to either of these is a banana split once. I save my money for books.

I connive to get to the Books and Gifts shop before it closes. It’s a proper quest. I have to read all the Mystery stories, and they have to be in the right order. What’s wrong with the Famous Five? Meh. Don’t like ’em. The Five Find-Outers have Fatty, and I’m like him. I’m tiny, not fat, but I have oddities. I am small and very serious.

Fatty is a bit of a poet. I am a bit of a poet. And Fatty lives in a pub too.

I try to eek out the stories, but I’m ravenous for them – Not another book? Can’t you make ’em last? – but I’m a book-a-trip addict. If the shop has closed early, or sold out of the next one in the series, I feel so weird and out of sync, it makes me breathless. On the way home, the grown-ups, energised from the pub, sing Rats, rats, big as bloody cats in the stores… and I read The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters and hope for a chance to experiment with invisible ink.

In that Tenby glow. That skin burn warm tingle after chill, oh it’s a fabulous feeling.

Curling up on the prickly carpeted seats of the bus, making the daylight last, longing to be a detective with the Five Find-Outers. Sand in my socks. Sea salt is crunchy in my hair. And, gradually, the tunnels of trees and encroaching summer darkness of home. Tired is the smell of a dusty bus and unburned tobacco shreds on the floor.

Tenby. I hurt for it. I conjure all its smells: Tenby and the bee-wild intoxication of Caldey Island Lavender perfume. Even my worried, childish clutching of the oldfashioned bottle, and my mother’s sneery disdain at my gift, fade in the childhood treasures of Tenby’s happy memories. I love that scent. And today, as a grown-up, I know I’m not alone – one of the most renowned international ‘noses’ in the fragrance business agrees with me: ‘Caldey Island Lavender… is simply the best Lavender soliflore fragrance on earth’ ( Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez)

UNCLE JONNY’S WIFE LESLEY JAMES

They were sitting in a gang halfway up St Catherine’s rock, all the wives of the pipeline boys. I couldn’t figure out why they were doing that. I couldn’t climb that far in bare feet - didn’t want to – and it wasn’t comfortable to sit there. But they stuck it out. Their loud sgrechs and very un-Welsh swearing – FAHKINELL – made people stare. I had a half-serious attempt to join them, but there was nothing to do on the rock. They were smoking, and when one of them offered me the packet and insisted I try one, I knew I was on my own.

Uncle Jonny’s wife talked loudly about how her pubic hair was poking out of her swimsuit. I was ashamed.

It was weird being with this group of women. It made Tenby alien. Them on the top of the rock looking down reminded me of girls in school who studied me, waiting for a suitable weakness to make fun of. The women encouraged me to go off and play, kid, but with whom? Play at what? However, there was an important reason why I couldn’t wander too far from the rock: I was worried about something. If they went for a walk or moved around somewhere, how would I recognise them to find them again? I found it hard to remember people by their faces, unless I knew them well. In the pub my parents ran, I met loads of people all the time, but most of them just went away, so I didn’t have to save their faces in my brain; I didn’t often save their names in my mind either. It wasn’t worth it, because they wouldn’t be back.

It was a cool, dampish North Beach that day, and the rock was in brown, slimy mode. A few seconds of sunshine made the drizzle-air seem colder. There were families with children on the sand, but they were huddled under towels, barriers up, drinking from flasks. I wasn’t up to the ordeal of trying to sidle into a group of strange children, the confusing task of making friends, which I never quite got right. So I pottered around the foot of cold-shouldering Big Rock, plattering in little pools, looking for creatures, hoping for sea anemones with their glorious dark purply fronds, but really trying to find a nice deep pool with warm water to pee in.

As I sat there peeing, I thought about Uncle Jonny’s wife. She’d been kind to me when I was introduced to her that morning at the pub. She said she was a beauty representative. For Mavala. I said it over and over. Mavalamavala.

Marvellous. She showed me how she did her makeup: eyeliner all flicky at the sides, how she curled her hair in flick-ups. And blue mascara – blue! But it was what she put on her skin which fascinated me. It gave her a kind of sparkly glow all over.

I hated it when my mother wore makeup because it looked stiff and cakey, and you could see the fine hairs on her cheeks standing up through it like fur.

But Uncle Jonny’s wife shimmered. I wanted to like her. Mavala. Mmmm.

She was less nice to me when we got into the car. It felt all wrong. I realised then that my mother had shoehorned me into this trip and I’d been foisted on them. I was used to being carted about by strangers to various places. I was grateful to be out. However, all the wives of the gas pipeline workers were visiting for the weekend, so this was A Proper Outing. I was, as someone else’s child, surplus to requirements. Uncle Jonny’s wife insisted I sit in the front seat next to Uncle Jonny. There were several good reasons why I had nothing to say to him, but I wasn’t going to think about that now. Uncle Jonny’s wife lolled about in the back seat, reading women’s magazines noisily flicking pages, with her legs and feet right up on the seat in front. I stared at my knees.

I couldn’t read my book in the car because the combination of words and being closer to the road than on a bus made me feel sick. I closed my eyes for the rest of the journey.

As soon as we arrived at the Tenby car park and met up with all the others, the pipeline boys disappeared together in one big group, leaving me with the wives. I didn’t know any of them. But they all knew each other. They were a gang. And I was a nuisance.

Alone in my little rock pool, it took me a second pee to realise that all the men had gone off drinking, and that the women were also passing a vodka bottle back and forth up there on the rock, too. The screeching got raucous, and the talk of cocks offensive. My mother would have been disgusted. When the men lolloped onto the beach in various stages of drunkenness and amorousness, the wives slipped and screamed their way gleefully down the rock.

It was a snoggy-gropey stagger back to the car park for them. The drive home was chilly and soggy for me. In the back seat now, I had nothing to change into and no towel. Uncle Jonny and his wife reached across and squeezed and kissed each other while he drove. My sea-soaked swimming costume seeped into the bum of my dress.

Back at home, there was no hot water left in the tank for me to have a bath, as the hotel guests had used it all. I went to bed gritty, uncomfortable and smelling of seaweed. I was determined not to be packed off with them again the next day.

At breakfast next morning, I told my mother a few choice bits about Uncle Jonny’s wife. My mother’s prudishness kicked in, and her face got all pointy and terse. Although she accused me of exaggerating, she didn’t have a leg to stand on when I said I was definitely not going with them on today’s trip.

Instead, I got my timings just right. And while my mother was downstairs in the bar preparing for opening time, I put the bolt on the bathroom door and ran a full bath, using up all the hot water. My mother wasn’t pleased. She’d worked out what I was doing from the clanky-hissy noises the cistern made.

She banged on the bathroom door, but I stayed put, even though she yelled through the keyhole at me. It was a considerable nuisance to have to inform all the women customers in the pub that they had to use the residents’ lavatory, located all the way up on the top floor, rather than our bathroom.

I pretended not to hear, and waited for the water to make me deaf, filling my ears, sinking my head back and letting my hair float out in the bathwater, like the fronds of a sea urchin.

RACHAEL LLEWELLYN

OPERATOR INDUCTION

Right. You’re with me today. Lucky me. Lucky you. First day? Second. What were you on yesterday? Photo booth. Ah. Good for you, they trust you to handle actual money.

Welcome to Drag Cars. Best ride in the park, I guess, if you’re between the ages of two and seven. Popular spot for parents to try and abandon their progeny so they can ride the roller-coaster. It’s unfortunately situated, as you can see, right next door. For the record, if that happens, you tell them what I tell them: ‘We are not babysitters. ’ Some of them won’t like it, but it is what it is. Some people ride the roller-coaster, others watch their toddler ride around in a toy car; I don’t make the rules.

The kids will queue by the gate on your left. Your left. Your other left. Look behind you. There we go. We unlock the hatch at nine on the dot. Generally speaking, though, we shouldn’t get too busy until about ten, ten thirty-ish.

The cars are here; they run along the track in front. It’s a small circuit; usually, it takes them about 2 minutes to get from point A to point B. The kids will come out at the far end over there on the right. If they want to go again – and they will – make sure they get out and walk around the back and queue over on the left again. They will, without a doubt, try and squeeze between the gap between the exit and the control booth to cut in front. I don’t know why they do it. Happened to me on my first day: a kid fell right onto the track. He was completely fine. But the mum went nuts, started getting in my face, demanding free wristbands for him and his nine siblings. Just something to watch out for, I guess.

The controls are in the booth. Key-operated. It’s so easy a monkey could do it, but unfortunately, they have not yet hired or trained one to do so. The key goes here.

Turn it to the left and press the blue button. In doing so, the car at the front will automatically run the length of the track before stopping by the exit gate. When dealing with a queue, I recommend waiting until the car is by the little plastic tire pile before letting the next one go.

Oh, there’s a thought, so the cars are all essentially the same, except the red one. It’s faster. I don’t know why. If the red car is at the front, wait until the other car is like... I don’t know, by the fake palm tree near the back, before letting it go. If you don’t, it will catch up and ram the other car along the rest of the track.

The paint is quite faded at this point, but if you look, you may notice that the cars all have names. There’s Del Boy, Rodney, Cassandra, Raquel, Boycie, Grandad, etc.: these are all characters from the 1980s sitcom Only Fools and Horses. I did not know this when I started working here. In my first week, one of the dads noticed the names and proceeded to re-enact whole scenes from the show for me, despite my telling him numerous times that I hadn’t seen it. Very annoying. Save yourself.

Why are they named after Only Fools and Horses...? Yeah, I have absolutely no idea. It’s not just me. Nobody seems to know.

Oh, yeah, so, most of the kids have wristbands, but some still do pay in tokens. If they do, the token box is here, next to the controls. It’s like... the only other thing in the booth. There you go.

There’s not really anything else to it.

Things to watch out for... Sometimes kids get really fixated on which car they want to go in. At least three times a day, one of them notices that the red one is the faster one. Yesterday, two four-year-olds got into a punch-up over it. If that happens, don’t get involved. We aren’t babysitters, we aren’t bouncers.

Other things... sometimes parents try and get away with not paying for the kid.

This one mum was like, ‘She’s under two, so she goes on for free. ’ That’s not a thing. If that happens, don’t take any crap. Like, there was this guy last week who tried to put his baby on here. The baby was kind of, I don’t know, fresh? Couldn’t even sit upright or hold their head up. I told the guy no, started a bloody war. He made that dent in the door there.

Something you’ll find is that people are entitled when they’re on holiday.

Even if their holiday is 5 days in a caravan in Great Yarmouth, they want the luxury treatment. You tell them ‘no’ for anything, and they get M.A.D. You’ll know this from yesterday, but there are no staff toilets. If you need to go, you have to use the same facilities as the customers. Which means, if there’s a line, they will try to cut in front of you. It goes without saying that the customer toilets are rank. It’s why I carry hand sanitiser with me everywhere. And sun cream. That booth is not as sheltered as you might think. Water too. It's always good to have a little go bag with you.

You get two breaks. Someone will come and cover us between 11.30 and 1.

Then again at 3.30-6. It’s Wednesday, so the park is open until 10 pm. Joy. They’ll have said this to you already, but they have this thing about phones.

If one of the managers comes by and sees you on your phone, you get a warning. If it happens again, it’s curtains. Jen fired someone last week for being on their phone when they were working the big slide. So, if the ride is quiet, make sure you stand around outside the booth so customers can physically see you there. Don’t look at your phone, don’t sneak a book or a magazine or anything. Just stand there. Waiting for your solitary day off.

Watching your summer disappear. You’re right, it actually is mind-numbingly boring. Very astute.

Right, what other wisdom can I bestow? Erm... watch out for Nick. He’s on the log flume today. The others will judge you if you get chatty with him, so just keep it brief if he talks to you. Nobody likes him. I don’t remember why. I went to primary school with him. Bryan, Manager Bryan not Arcade Bryan, doesn’t wear deodorant, so just be ready if he comes by to chat.

Also, say you get a headache, a broken arm, an ailment of some kind, do not ask to see the first aider. The first aider is Dave. Have you met him yet? No. Okay, so unobjectively, he seems like the sort of guy who secretly eats skin.

Lots of eye contact. Lots of repeating your name after every sentence. I once had a migraine so bad I couldn’t actually see out of my left eye. Did I call Dave? Did I shit. Look, when he’s the subject of a documentary in five years, you can thank me.

Today’s wristband colour is blue, so if anyone comes and flashes you a band in any other colour, send them on their way. Speaking of, wristbands are discounted after 5 pm, so it’s going to get vile then—something to look forward to.

Okay, it’s nine. Go and unlock the gate. It’s still on the left. On your left. No. Right. That's the one. Brilliant stuff.

Rachael Llewellyn (she/her) is the author of two novels and a collection of short stories. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies and journals, including The Manchester Review, Divinations Magazine and Polari Press. She was awarded a PhD from Swansea University with her thesis on trauma and memory in folklore. In 2019 she was awarded a Francis W Reckitt Grant. She lives in South Wales with her husband and their rescue cat.

SWEAT AND PANCAKES TESS POWELL

There was something about the sweat induced madness of the heat-soaked corner store; the un-air-conditioned musk; the loudly humming ice cream freezer clinging to life; parts of strangers bodies you’d never want to see exposing themselves, as shirts are pulled off and shorts are rolled up. The optimistic lack of fans and cooling in a country where perennial coolness is an endangered state and the heat of the future largely ignored, is a ticking time bomb; but still we go to this store because we need milk to make pancakes and we want to make pancakes because it’s Sunday and that’s the special sort of thing you do on a Sunday.

We get the milk and return home up the dusty steps to the second floor flat — oh my god why does no-one ever clean in here — then mix the batter and turn on the stove. By optimistically pursuing the cuisine in our sweltering apartment we cling to some sense of normalcy.

The window in the bedroom doesn’t even open. I contacted maintenance last year when we moved in and said, ‘the window doesn’t open,’ and they sent a man over —thick with labouring muscles, unshaven — storming up to the bedroom as soon as I let him through the front door. He gets to the window and goes, ‘this one?’ and I nod and he grabs the handle with his titanous hand and wrenches it, veins bulging. The window pops, swinging open with a mouthful of dust and he says, ‘it’s these old buildings, call me next summer when it’s hot and I’ll come by again.’ And I remember thinking what the fuck does that mean, do I have to call him every time I want my window opened? The next time I closed it I learned that even with all my strength and the strength of my partner and mortal friends around me that no, the window could not be opened again. The handle croaks helpless and loose and otherwise the thing remains shut. I’m so annoyed at this lack of real maintenance I still haven’t called again, though that resolve is crumbling.

We are in our underwear, having stripped off shortly after we come through the door. It’s nearly noon. Still, we fry the pancakes with undeterred resolve.

Halfway through as I add each newly grilled cake onto a plate covered by a dishtowel, the washing machine beeps as it finishes and me and Roger look at each other and I say, ‘we can put it on the line,’ and he says, ‘our towels are in there too,’ and I say, ‘they can wait,’ and he says, ‘they can’t.’

We have the tumble-drier pounding in the kitchen and the gas stove fire lit and no cross-breeze in the building. Outside Roger pins the washing over the line that hangs over our concrete and brick garden; so void of foliage I’m sure plants warn others not to grow there. Why anyone would pave a garden in concrete I would never know, but on this day I curse their lineage to end violently and abruptly. The sun beats off the brick and stone and creates a sort of reflective heat chamber so that when Roger comes back in his skin is red and wet, and he huffs a few breaths then looks at me and says, ‘how is it hotter in here?’

Our pancake mission is underway though at a point the oven has to be turned on to heat the berry compote. It was an absolutely necessary pancake addition. When I send the oven fans buzzing Roger says, ‘is that absolutely necessary?’ and I say, ‘it is absolutely necessary.’ Because I’d made the compote the month before and put it in the freezer to keep and I definitively would not eat a pancake without my handmade compote as it would haunt me, knowing it was there and succulent and sweet and frozen and wasted.

So we stand in the kitchen, tumble-drier pounding, stove-flame undulating, oven-fan blaring. The sun comes in thin trickles through the window and singes the metal sink like a magnifying glass because we have no curtains on the kitchen windows because who needs curtains on their kitchen windows in the back of a house in one of the wettest countries in Europe where supposedly the sun never shines?

The pancakes seem to cook incredibly slowly, or rather there is just so much batter and only one pan. We enter into a transient silence as we take turns frying one then another. At one point I take my bra off in a desperate attempt to cool, but leave my panties as I maintain some sense of dignity.

Time takes on a new and unknown quality until the last of the pancake batter enters the frypan. Triumphantly I turn the stove off as the final pancake sweeps from pan to platter. I turn to Roger and smile wildly.

We set the dining room table with the pancakes, the compote, the syrup, the cream, two cups of coffee, and a vase of flowers we’d picked up the day before — though somewhat wilted now.

We were largely naked and wet, our hair stringy and sticking to our faces, and the sound of one wheezing box fan thrummed in the corner. Even so, we sat ceremoniously, using our nice dishes to sup on our pancake feast.

After I took that first hot bite, that sweet and spongy and fruity and creamy bite, I looked at Roger and said, ‘I think we could’ve used more baking powder.’

Tess Powell is a writer and illustrator from California who now resides in Wales. You can read her short story "Fruits of Our Labour" in the Rhys Davies short story anthology this October and her comic "The Last Wizard of Cwmdafi" as part of the Shortbox Comic Fair releasing this October as well. In her free time she enjoys exploring nature and returning even stranger than before.

WANT TO READ MORE FROM OUR WORDSMITHS? Helen Cook Helen Cook is a retired teacher who has taken up writing since having the time. She writes poetry mainly, graduated with an MA in Creative Writing in 2013 and has recently had her first collection, A Cloth of Sounds, published. She lives in The Vale, Glamorgan.

Lloyd Edwards Lloyd works mainly with poetry exploring the many nuances of human nature, including it's psychological and responsive facets.

Manda Eliot Manda Eliot is a Carmarthenshire poet who enjoys spoken word events and walks along the Gower. She has been published by Poetry Wales, Dreich, ASP Literary Journal and Panoply. She features in the Black Bough winter anthology.

Angela Graham Angela Graham is from Northern Ireland. She is a finalist in the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2025. Poetry collections: Exposure (coming 2026) and Star, 2024 from Culture And Democracy Press; Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere, 2022. Short story collection, A City Burning, 2020 Seren Books (Edge Hill nomination). She is Welshspeaking, an award-winning film maker in Wales (Oscar-entrant, BAFTA Cymru-nominated screenwriter et al). angelagraham.org Sheila Jacob Sheila Jacob was born and raised in Birmingham. She moved to Wales with her husband and baby daughter in 1974 and has lived there ever since. Her debut pamphlet, a tribute to her Brummie heritage, was published with Yaffle Press in 2024. She is working on her first full collection.

Lesley James Lesley James was awarded a place on Representing Wales 2024-25, Literature Wales’s flagship programme for under-represented writers.

She gained a Big Welsh Rhyme time commission from Book Trust Cymru, and was shortlisted for the Borzello Prize. She was also shortlisted for a UK Very Short Story award by LoveReading UK and was runner up in the Wildflowers poetry competition. Lesley has work in Afonydd/Rivers (Arachne), Bold (Broken Spine), Cardiff 75(Parthian) and journals including New Welsh Review, Spelt, Black Iris, iambapoet. Lesley’s chapbook A Walk With Scissors is published

by Infinity Books UK. Siân Jones Siân Jones is a new creative writer based in Cardiff. A proud Welsh writer, she is inspired by the natural world, shifting atmospheres, and the textures of lived experience. Her work explores the quiet details of place and feeling. Though new to the craft, she is passionate about developing her voice and sharing stories that connect with others.

Elizabeth Lockwood Waves of Stardust (Turquoise Quill Press, 2022) Rain and Leaves (Turquoise Quill Press, 2024) Ghosts of the Water (Turquoise Quill Press, 2025)

Nat Phillips Starting his Ph.D in Creative Writing in 2023, Nathaniel Phillips immediately began volunteering for the Cultural Institute through its internship opportunities programme. Nathaniel kicked off his studies at Aberystwyth University where he achieved his Undergraduate and Masters degrees, both in Creative Writing.

Though an avid reader of all genres, he has a preference for Sci-Fi and Fantasy with a mix of Philosophical and Psychological fiction.

During his time at Neath Port Talbot College, Nathaniel had a poem and a piece of flash fiction published in the 2017 collections for Busta Rhyme and Welcome to Wonderland.

Sue Regan Sue Regan was born in South Wales, with her childhood punctuated by the Flat Holm foghorn. She is still drawn to the sounds of the sea, and writes about longing and connections.

Recently, she has been encouraged to share her writing with others, and to read at local events. In 2024, she had poetry published for the first time, at Diamond Twig: https://ellenswriting.home.blog/poem-of-the-month-2/ , in Dreich and in These Pages Sing.

Eluned Smith Eluned is a writer from Carmarthen. She was published in the bilingual anthology ‘Afonydd’ by Arachne Press. She performs poetry across Wales. Instagram @elunedwrites Mair Jones Mair Jones (she/they) is a writer and historian from Lampeter, Ceredigion, who runs the blog Queer Welsh Stories, has recently been Cymraeg Editor for Poetry Wales and also helps to run Queer Book Club Swansea and Llyfrau Lliwgar Aberystwyth (a bilingual queer book club). She writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction, in Welsh, English and bilingually, and has appeared in anthologies and zines like 'O Ffrwyth y Gangen Hon' and 'Proud Writing' as well as Llyfrau Lliwgar's zines, rhych newydd and Qywir, and Paned o Ge's zine 'Monologau Mas ar y Maes Rachael Llewelyn Rachael Llewellyn (she/her) is the author of two novels and a collection of short stories. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies and journals, including The Manchester Review, Divinations Magazine and Polari Press. She was awarded a PhD from Swansea University with her thesis on trauma and memory in folklore. In 2019 she was awarded a Francis W Reckitt Grant. She lives in South Wales with her husband and their rescue cat.

Tess Powell Tess Powell is a writer and illustrator from California who now resides in Wales. You can read her short story "Fruits of Our Labour" in the Rhys Davies short story anthology this October and her comic "The Last Wizard of Cwmdafi" as part of the Shortbox Comic Fair releasing this October as well. In her free time she enjoys exploring nature and returning even stranger than before.

Perry Wyatt Dr Perry Wyatt is a wordsmith and creative from Wales. She has published three books thus far with the most recent being The Burning Tower (2024, Cambria Press).

Alongside screenwriting, she loves audio drama and exploring how stories can be told.

Her poetry has been published internationally.

Cori Smith-Pimlott

Tom Smith-Pimlott

Cori Smith-Pimlott is a writer and Tom Smith-Pimlott is a editor based in Swansea, originally sometimes-illustrator from Pembrokeshire. In addition to doodling away on the sunny These Pages Sing, she is a fiction shores of Swansea. His editor for Divinations Magazine, an sketchbooks are filled with online literary horror magazine. silly little characters and Cori is a content and horrifying monsters. He has communications manager by day and is studying part-time for an MA also been known to write a tabletop RPG or two. His in Creative Writing at Swansea University. illustrations can be found on She likes to explore grief, Instagram.com/madebydogg relationships, character, and place os and his games on through horror and the uncanny in madebydogs.itch.io liminal spaces.

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