Gary Strachan – "Write" Said Fred
Whimsical observations from deep within an erratic mind
I wrote a significant amount of the attached narrative last week as a tribute to a pooch with who I'd forged a strong bond since arriving into my life on his mother's shirttails around a year ago. Due to an amalgam of time restraints, other more pressing issues and author uncertainty around the prose, I've... Continue Reading →
Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the passing (from COVID-19) of ex-Leeds United footballer Norman Hunter. The indiscriminate pathogen, which's tainted millions of lives globally, proving a hard man reputation wouldn't deter it from maintaining a path of death and economic destruction. Enclosed below is the narrative I penned twenty four months ago in tribute... Continue Reading →
Yesterday I was deeply saddened to learn the nonagenarian grandmother of my good friend (Samantha) had passed away. As would be expected, the granddaughter grief stricken when delivering her stark news via telephone. Sam's forebear Brenda spent ninety plus years wandering this vale of tears. Those four score and ten plus summers played out around... Continue Reading →
Head bowed, with gravity dispersing tears across a cold stone floor, I strolled slowly behind my equally distraught offspring headed out of the crematorium door. The events playing out as they, me and a host of other family and friends (while stood a foot or so from her coffin) had just bode a final farewell... Continue Reading →
Today's literary offering is the 2,500th blog I've written and published on my website strachan.blog . To celebrate this achievement I enclose a trio of pieces from the scores I've penned about my recently passed mother Maggie during the six years since yours truly started scribbling these journals. The trinity of essays below are partly... Continue Reading →
Seconds after our mother's final breath the song Cavatina's opening lyrics "She was beautiful. Beautiful to my eyes...." played out on my sister Helen's Chill Music playlist. Although not planned, this coincidence providing a fitting commentary to not only how our newly deceased mother comported herself throughout her life, but also how Maggie conducted her... Continue Reading →
After a COVID induced fourteen month hiatus, I'm once again sat writing in a White Rose (WR) Centre coffee house. Most of the staffs visages have changed, but the friendly service and rejuvenating qualities of their strong coffee beans continue. In the wake of the ending of this enforced absence, my breakfast of a basic... Continue Reading →
While my mother sits in her armchair watching today's funeral of Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, I'll be shredding a pile of documents in the matriarch's kitchen. Like jet blasting muck from patios, yours truly find the wanton destruction of confidential documents a cathartic experience. The bank statements, tax code documents and delinquent insurance... Continue Reading →
Indelibly etched on GJ Strachan's life canvas is the verve resultant from 1960's/70's football commentator David Coleman exclaiming "Lorimer. One-nil!" A regular childhood soundscape heard as a Leeds United number seven Peter Lorimer power driver thundered into an opponents net. The ball striking the netting with such ferocity that if the crowd roar hadn't have... Continue Reading →