Roy Stannard's Blog

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

Creative writing

  • As in Photography, so in Life.

    In Minimalist Photography the technique is the palette. The palette informs the technique. It speaks of space. The image on the canvas is the art in itself. It doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. If you can read messages, meanings and morality into the creation, then that is your mind’s neurological pathways conspiring together… Read more

  • The Hirsch SB-1 guitar makes its debut – and ‘The Messiah will come again’

    Jon Hirsch is a dreamer, inventor, perfectionist and musician. He combines all these qualities in the form of his life’s obsession. Creating his own guitar. Like me, he’s listened to all the greats, wondered at the strange blend of spiritual transcendence and sheer down to earth sweat and toil involved in making a guitar sing.… Read more

  • Standing at the doorway of the year (what I’m doing next)

    Waiting for stars to come into alignment, precursor angels to whisper in our ear and a sense of imminent goodness to happen. Sure, 2010 was a tough year and some aspirations have had to be put on a ventilator for a while – but day by day that infant we call hope will grow imperceptibly… Read more

  • A letter to the six year old me

    I was a cute kid, light brown hair with bright, wide open eyes, curious about everything, trusting about a lot more. I was a first born so for the first four years of my life I was a prince, the centre of attention and the focus of everything – except that for the first five… Read more

  • England’s Dreaming

    I was working in London. I dismissed the delegates early so that they could repair to the hotel bar in order to watch the game. The feeling of anticipation mixed with a layer of fear (Germany..penalties..average age of their team 4 years younger than ours) was palpable. Read more

  • Sea Whispers

      Sea Whispers   On the less travelled side of the horizon Two gypsy birds slide along the Channel trades The sun inlaying their jewel antics. When we were young our bodies wrote love in the sand We burned without fear of carcinoma And every star was a supernova Pieces that couldn’t help fitting together Read more

  • Are you made of the write stuff?

    Regular visitors to this Blog will know that I indulge from time to time in creative writing and will have found evidence of this in the form of poetry, an unfinished novel and a short story for children. Putting something like that on your Blog is usually the closest one gets to actually publishing one’s Read more

  • Seagulls by Roy Stannard

      Seagulls There must always be seagulls Just as there were When I struck  lucky And met you Offering you a lift In a quiet seaside town Where nothing happens, except us. That was ten years And many seagulls ago But the same sense That anything could happen Happens again As I look into those Read more

  • Selfless – a psychological tripwire by Roy Stannard

    Colm was a generous man. He had been brought up to believe that the more he gave, the more he would be rewarded later in life or in the life after. As a child he had shared his toys with his friends at school, unselfishly. He had lent his things to people he hardly knew Read more