Roy Stannard's Blog

When you think you know it all, ask the next question

Communication

  • Always, my Friend

    A friendship that is never tested Because there is no cross examination. Where the beginning Is also the end. Always, my friend. Read more

  • The End and the Beginning

      The End and the Beginning   Because others had named the day We can plot the moment When first in a church and then in the barn of an after bouquet of a wedding you caught a glimpse of the future in each other deftly like a slipping shadow at first then ripening boldly Read more

  • Who Is Like God?

      Who is like God? Love was the father and love the mother. You arrived in December, anticipating another Christmas A reward in yourself rather than a present A pilgrimage more than a journey Because we cannot find love in ourselves Only with another And you were the purest love The world of love in Read more

  • The Language of Us

      The Language of Us Before you, I walked at the edge of the group A straggler in strangers My life didn’t fit, held together with an unsafety pin I was made not to measure A bird not of a feather And my hesitant shadow held back Expecting never to be expectant, half a step Read more

  • Do It Yourself Celebrity

    Last Friday 29th July I went to the Holmbush Centre at Shoreham to help my old friend and radio colleague Patrick Souiljaert man (person?) a stand at the entrance to Tesco there. He has written an autobiography in microscopic detail about the challenges of his life as a person with Cerebral Palsy. He was starved Read more

  • For Now

    Before the world became a serious business Because before you were a mother You were a little girl A wisp of a person Without a care in the world Read more

  • Is this the bravest book ever written?

    This may be the bravest book ever written. Why? Firstly, because in physical terms it took Patrick the best part of two years laboriously typing 700 words a day with his left index finger. Secondly, the subject matter is raw, honest and occasionally self-deprecating. His account of a visit to an unfeeling, heartless prostitute, his… Read more

  • Somewhere, Nowhere, Everywhere

    Somewhere, nowhere, everywhere Before the rise and fall of everything When the tilting storm clouds creased their foreheads And the world felt numb I searched for meaning in words and phrases like a dictionary compiler struck blind I couldn’t see for the eyes in front of me I couldn’t hear because there were too many Read more

  • The Poppies

    We were at peace with the poppies, whispering like moths wings on a perfect Sussex hillside Feeling the fairy stems caress our legs like a repeated yes, yes. Read more

  • The Other Half of my Heart

    Christmas is a time the distance that separates people who love one another should magically be made to disappear. There are songs that deal with this theme, but none that really connected with me, so I wrote some lyrics. ‘The Other Half of my Heart’ is the result. My good friend Nigel Black suggested I… Read more