Heugh Battery gun emplacement, Headland, Hartlepool. For years I’ve been pronouncing it ‘Huff’, but I’m not from round here. It’s ‘the ‘Yuff’, and it’s where the first deaths on British soil took place in WW1 – at 8.10am on Wednesday 16 December 1914, when the town was bombarded from the sea. Over 100 people died, did you know that? Then the German ships went and knocked seven bells out of Whitby and Scarborough.

I’ve been part of a monthly writing group since January, bent to the task of researching and responding to the personal histories of those involved. We’ve put together this anthology, and we’re launching it with a reading at Hartlepool CFE at 5pm on Thursday 11 December. You’re most welcome to come along, and maybe buy a book – they’re most reasonably priced, and there are four poems in there from me. Here’s the titles, to create intrigue…

Night In The Barracks

The Margarets Go Digging Sea Coal

Etta Harris, Junior Mistress, Finds the Kingdom Of Heaven

Playing Soldiers