Penny for Your Travels

By Sean Walsh

Sunday afternoon, long ago winter. My Dad was taking Rusty for a walk and would I like to come? Would I! Thus begins a menoir of sorts: I look back on my boyhood in an Irish town in the 40's, during and after W W 2... Nostalgia, humour, innocence - the stuff dreams are made of... A world that has gone forever and will never be again...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean Walsh
• Release date: Jan 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005216382

Sean Walsh

I've worked and lived in communications all my life: journalist, subeditor, editor, actor, director, producer - here in Ireland and abroad.I fell in love with Hiberno-English a long time ago - English as it is spoken and written in my country - and have been in love with it ever since.I love the challenge of pen and blank paper: creating characters, storylines, drama.If I may share with you some of the gems that have influenced me down the years; I've tried to abide by them but didn't always succeed!"You make your way by taking it..."It does not just happen, you have to make it happen..."Sometimes in stooping down to pick up two pennies one can lose a fortune..."InterestsFriendship - when it is not possessive, controlling...Quiet. Silence - a positive value completely overlooked by many today...Reading - carefully judged. If I'm not hooked by the first sequence - the first paragraph - I won't read any further...Trying, day in day out, not to spill any more milk... and to stop crying over milk already spilt.Not suffering fools gladly...Analysing Casablanca, frame for frame, line by line...(TBC...)PublicationsMy scripts have been broadcast on RTE, Radio One, BBC 4 and, in translation, on European networks; televised on RTE One, BBC One and Channel 4; staged at the Peacock by the Abbey National Theatre, at the Project, the Eblana, the Liverpool Playhouse and on the London Fringe...Credits include The Night of the Rouser. Earwig. The Dreamers. Fugitive. Veil. Penny for Your Travels. Far Side of the Moon. Three for Calvary. Jenny One, Two, Three... The Circus. Centre Circle. Where Do We Go from Here, My Lovely? At The Praetorium. Conclave. Assault on a Citadel.Has conducted many workshops on Creative/Script Writing in Dublin and at various centres around Ireland.Favourite authorsA D Sertillanges. John Henry Newman. Waugh. Greene. Hemingway. Hans Kung.LikesGood conversation. The company of my fellow searchers... Con pane... meaning, with bread... hence company...DislikesArrogant, self-opinionated prigs... Controlling, bullying clerics...Favourite Quote"I passionately hate the idea of being with it. I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time." (Orson Welles (1915 - 1985))

Book preview

PENNY FOR YOUR TRAVELS

By Sean Walsh

Published by:

Sean Walsh at Smashwords

© 2022 by Sean Walsh

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PENNY FOR YOUR TRAVELS

Sean Walsh

Sunday afternoon, long ago winter…

My Dad was taking Rusty for a walk

and would I like to come?

Would I!..

‘Away at a goodly pace, the town soon behind us.

The countryside still, frosted, crunching underfoot.

A listless sun in a fading sky...

Gulls on the wing, inland

from a barren seascape:

wheeling... screaming... foraging.

And in the distant, grotesque trees,

cacophonous crows…

Our cocker spaniel off the lead -

sniffing, searching, darting,

exploring, checking...

Rusty! Here! Come on, boy!.. Rusty?.. Rusty!..

Ah, that a fella! That’s the good dog!..

My feet numb in boots that needed mending,

still awkward in my first pair of long trousers.

At Dad’s side, keeping up, bumping, nudging,

Jigging, chatter boxing.

Him listening, nodding, musing...

Smoking... And again, smoking -

as if, somehow,