Updated 5:00am 12 March 2010:

Get involved

RSS news for you | Forums
Send your stories

Powered by Google

Home Views & Blogs Columnists

David Charters

David Charters: Discovering the promised land - the new carpet Mar 09 2010

“DON’T step on the new carpet,” chimed my wife and the melody of her tone rose several octaves on the words “new” and “carpet”. At that juncture, in what has often been a troubled life, my pale and cold-tipped nose had been leading the way into the lounge, followed by my eyes, which blinked twice in bemusement, as I absorbed the full meaning of this instruction.Read

David Charters: Buying a new coat can be a minefield! Mar 02 2010

“THAT’S a grand looking coat for the money,” I said to the dapper man, whose diplomatic eyes and canny ways with the measuring tape bring a mood of high civility to the shop, which attracts customers of a certain age – trapped somewhere between the early signs of memory loss and the second hip replacement. “I can’t believe the price,” I added, as he glided across the carpet with his smile at full beam.Read

David Charters: ‘I am a martyr to vertigo’ Feb 23 2010

“DAD’S going to hang a picture,” called our 13-year-old son.Read

David Charters: Did he know where we might find some frogspawn? Feb 02 2010

SHE was the only love of my tender, cold-nosed and pyjama-chested years. I had held her pale hand through jungles and carried her over malarial swamps, silently passing the midnight sentries of hunting armies. Now, on this strange night, she lay dying, as a fog settled like old man’s breath on the rutted and frozen fields of our own land.Read

David Charters: As we squabbled we were likened to Liz Taylor and Richard Burton Jan 26 2010

I HAD been talking to our 13-year-old son about the best balm for chilblains, when an itch of sufficient intensity to have stirred a moan from a fibreglass Buddha erupted on the middle toe of my left foot – causing me to pause for an urgent scratch outside the sandstone wall guarding a perjink garden, where a winter bird was pecking at nuts in the tiny webbed bag left dangling from a pear tree.Read

David Charters tells of how bravery was lost on the frozen earth Jan 19 2010

SHE WAS a brave little one, braver than a lion in her own way, though hers was the bravery that came from being the runt of the litter.Read

David Charters: The advent of round-the-clock pyjamas has done for Birkenhead what cakes did for Eccles Jan 12 2010

A MEAN, bone-aching wind shrilled across the grey roll of the old river to sting the eyes of the long-salted gulls hunched behind the empty sheds. Once, officious spectacles shone from the little windows of those brick sheds, which, then, had looked to the cranes stooping and creaking over the quayside.Read

David Charters: Husbands always look wrong in a house, don’t they Jan 05 2010

OUTSIDE, snowflakes, dancing like string-puppets, fell from a purple-veined sky of grey sacks; still occasionally pierced by the frozen sun, and these flakes tickled the wet black noses of dogs straining on their leads.Read

David Charters philosphises on Christmas food and says goodbye to another year Dec 29 2009

‘AH, WELL,” said my good friend the Philosopher, while running his long-fingered and powerfully veined hands along the brass studs on the arms of the softly curved, green leather chair, which had been waiting for him among the ghosts at our table in the old bandstand of the marble café, hidden off the windiest street in the world.Read

David Charters: Can't you see the orange isn't for eating Dec 22 2009

FROM the depths of our generously rounded wooden bowl, a pyramid of fruit arose, gently releasing the scents of many faraway lands – tangerines, some still on their sprigs; a proud pineapple crammed with flavoursome fibres ready to torment the dentures of dear Aunty Gwladys; swollen, wide-smiling melons of yellow and green; the dazzling skin of eye-watering lemons; dark grapes peeping out like nipples; full-bodied pippins from our own English orchards; red apples polished like cricket balls; russets as brown as toads and limes with calypso hearts.Read

David Charters: Philosophising on music how it should be heard Dec 08 2009

IF YOU want to understand music,” began my good friend the Philosopher, but his flow was briefly halted by the toothy waitress with a comely manner, who had just rested the breakfast plate before him on our table among the ghosts in the old bandstand of the marble café, hidden off the windiest street in the world.Read

David Charters: Hippies, vapour-rub and a husband's trial by biscuit Dec 01 2009

BEYOND the lounge window of our little house, the scurrying villagers on the hill paused to fasten their top buttons and stare deeply into the unspeaking sky, asking where the autumn had gone – leaving the imperturbable old tree to stoop naked over the stone church, where each year he hears the first scraping of Christmas carols.Read

David Charters: Often, passion overwhelms the more temperate spirit Nov 24 2009

IT HAS never happened. In all my years on these beloved islands, scattered by God into a coughing sea of sullen greys and peevish greens, my athleticism has never been admired by those judges of human flesh, who rest their own buttocks on shooting sticks in the squelching fields of competition. And I should tell you now that those years began when Britain still had an Empire and teabags were a distant dream.Read

David Charters on a priest's gentle wisdom Nov 03 2009

THE roly-poly priest with the heaven-searching blue stare eased an itch on the back of his hand by brushing it against the white whiskers rambling from his chin, before continuing with a homily, delivered in a homely spirit, which told the congregation in the little, red-bricked church that God was seen best through the eyes of a child.Read

David Charters: Moving from the singular to the plural Oct 20 2009

AS SURELY as a perky apple swells on the tree, slowly maturing from the branch to the barrow under the sky’s many curtains – so the human moves from the singular to the plural, from the individual to the collective.Read

David Charters: Biscuits and the missing link Oct 13 2009

IT WAS early on a Saturday morning, the time of peace and dreaming, and my wife was curled on the sofa by a mug of steaming tea, nibbling the outer extremities on the corner of a Garibaldi biscuit, while reading her magazine – pausing occasionally to allow the significance of a particular item to settle on her thoughts. Read

David Charters on the joys of autumn and conkers Oct 05 2009

I APPROACHED the village shop on a lightly chilled morning of rustic colours, as children crunched the curled leaves that had flopped, sighing, to the ground – passing on their way the dew- jewelled webs spun by spiders into the cities of the night.Read

David Charters: There are good causes and bad causes, he said, but you always go for the lost cause Sep 29 2009

EVENING had turned to night and the moon was high and proud, like a great cheese of light, when the man walked into the country pub with his story and his wild hair, his beckoning grey eyes and his punch-knuckled hands, whose thumbs had been hardened by rubbing the earth from the roots of vegetables.Read

David Charters pickles the moment and ponders when a smile becomes a laugh Sep 21 2009

MY GOOD friend the Philosopher was sitting opposite me on the train wearing the Donegal tweed jacket, which he favours for trips beyond the urban scramble to distant places where, as he puts it, the young birds still sing in a sweet treble and the waters rush clean and clear.Read

David Charters on the joy of bureaucrats Sep 15 2009

“A good man?” considered my wife with a sigh, as she dried more thoroughly in the hall. She had returned from meeting with some anonymous official, responsible for an absurdly complicated detail of our financial affairs. “His smile was like the sweat of death, so I knew instantly that he was a bureaucrat,” she replied, anger briefly darkening the lovely turquoise of her eyes, before the oval of her mouth spread into a wide smile, as she savoured the imagery in her words. “You know what they are like,” she continued. “They are all the same, dripping dandruff in industrial quantities while ticking boxes – and sucking peppermints to hold off the halitosis.”Read

Explore Columnists

Your Post

Help us make the news - contact us with your stories, pictures and videos ...

E-Newsletter Sign Up

E-newsletter

Get news direct to your mailbox. It's free!

News Where You Live

Liverpool area interactive map

News that's happening near you

The Liverpool Daily Post, the best source for Liverpool FC, Everton FC and Liverpool news. Your Liverpool Daily Post, great local images, videos and your local stories.