Sunday 25 October 2015

Fegg Hayes Airfield

Fegg Hayes Airfield is a former wartime US Army Air Forces airfield used during WW2. It is now abandoned and used mainly as a hangout for layabouts, chavs and – occasionally – scroungers.

The airfield is located through the hedge behind the statue of Betty Paige on Humps Road in eastern Fegg Hayes. It was used by passing squadrons from early 1944 until June 1945 as a resupply point and "booty drop zone".

Fegg Hayes Airfield

Despite this, the leaders of what was then known as the Peoples Republic of Stoke declared that no Stokie women actually got pregnant by any of the American guests during the war.

"Aye, I looked after a few of the airmen when I wasn't on the frontline myself," land girl and royal marine Kaylee Hulse, now 98, said. "But their American gametes were much too weak to penetrate our tough working class Stokie ovaries, so they didn't get through thankfully. Everyone was a winner."

Sunday 18 October 2015

Skipper Grateful To The Boss

Stoke City soccer star Terry Skipper has opened up about his recent off-field problems.

In an emotional interview, that drove most who witnessed it to TEARS, Skipper said: "I won't go on about the specifics of my problems, literally everyone knows what they were, I don't need to go on about them anymore."

"I was at my lowest ebb," he continued. "Even lower than that time that video came out of me roasting those ladyboys with my posse while racially abusing them. Or the time I chucked some rotten eggs at a group of spastics. This was worse, but as I said, I don't want to keep going on about it, no-one wants to hear anymore about it."

"I went over to New Jersey and spent some time with 'the boss', Bruce Springsteen. He really helped me get myself together and move forward."

Sunday 11 October 2015

Short Story Competition: 1st Place

'Marilyn In Stoke' by Kevin Gout

Marilyn Monroe wiped her mouth. She had never had a man who tasted so good. Big Kev took his hands off Marilyn's head and placed them on top of his own, and leaned back.

He had travelled back in time from Stoke in 2015 to Los Angeles in 1962. His job was to kill Marilyn Monroe, but he had ended up falling in love with her.

He was the kind of guy the chicks loved. He was a real man. A straight-talker, a doer, with a grizzled face and a thick Stoke accent. Sure he drank too much, had a beer belly, thinning hair and dodgy knees, but if anything, this made the ladies love him more. These were the vulnerabilities that made him human to them.

He didn't need Marilyn, he had the cream of Stoke's women in 2015 waiting for him. But there was something about this crazy dame that got to him like no-one else had, not for a long time.

He had started to formulate a plan. It was so crazy it might just work. He would find a Marilyn doppelganger and leave her in Marilyn's deathbed in 1962, and take Marilyn back with him to the present. The real question though, was not if Stoke was ready for Marilyn Monroe, but was Marilyn Monroe ready for Stoke?

Saturday 10 October 2015

Short Story Competition: 2nd Place

'God Barry' by Barry Machin

As Barry drew the sword from his pathetic wife's now lifeless corpse, laughing as he wiped the blood on the terrible pink curtains he had had to put up with in his bedroom (and it was his bedroom, he had paid for the house with his money) for all these years, he realised: I am a God.

Barry went downstairs and opened a beer. If he wanted to drink during the day, he could now. There was no-one to stop him. He could go to the football now, every Saturday – home and away. Finally get that moustache he always wanted. Everything was coming up Barry.

Friday 9 October 2015

Short Story Competition: 3rd Place

'Oatcake vs Pikelet' by Terry Hooch

"There's no place in Stoke for sweet foods," the oatcake said to the pikelet. "This is a savoury town and I'm a savoury treat. Just the way the people like it."

"Get lost granddad!" the pikelet replied. "You're past it. Yesterday's news. The youngins of today want something sweet, round and firm, not something old and floppy like you!"

"When I were a lad, youngins knew they're place and respected their elders," the oatcake said.

"Yeah well this ain't Downton Abbey, daddio," the pikelet laughed, and did some street dancing to the oatcake to flaunt his youth in his savoury face.

The oatcake pulled out a gun and shot the pikelet dead. He knew the police would do nothing. Oatcakes ruled Stoke and everyone knew it.

Thursday 8 October 2015

Short Story Competition

The Stoke Literary Society has decided its winners of the Official 2015 Stoke Short Story Competition.

The top three writers all get ten pints of milk, with third place also getting a goat, second place a cow and the overall winner getting a white Vauxhall Nova.

The winning stories will be published here over the following days.