Tidying through piles of handwritten notes recently – a perpetual task, it seems – I came across a couple of short texts I’d written on a June afternoon in 2014 at the writing group I run at the local library.  I can’t remember what the writing prompt was now, but I was working on a section on the Battle of Waterloo for my children’s story and was deeply immersed in the history of that particular period.  There’s something about only having 10 minutes to knock something together which sharpens the creative process and I’m always amazed at how succinct and relatively well-formed these pieces turn out to be.  Mostly I don’t do anything with them other than stack them on a pile on the bookshelf which periodically needs weeding through, but not wanting to throw them away un-birthed, I’ve typed up a couple for sharing here.  Enjoy.

The Iron Duke