A Bump on the Road

A Bump on the Road is a book of 18 short stories emanating from the innocent years before secondary school, and the growing out of it. The stories reflect an observant child in Ireland attempting to understand the world around him. Family, The Church, The Troubles, secrets, ghost stories, leaving home, myths and legends. All this comes under the microscope of a child growing up. These stories are disguised memoirs – creative memoirs. Little nuggets of memories give birth to these flights of fancies.

The reader is taken on a gamut of emotions in this rich and amusing journey of growing up in Ireland. Sorrow is never too far away. It allows the reader to get a glimpse into the mind of a young child - his thoughts, wishes and dreams as he ventures through the streets of his birth and beyond. The reader will engage and identify with the child as each adventure takes place

Michael McLaverty, an Irish writer, advises to go for the personal and the local. I understand that. However “the good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has an eye on the thread of the universe which runs through himself and all things,” advises Ralph Waldo Emerson. That thread of the universe, of life on this planet, runs through this book. Orhan Pamuk understands the weight of literature, an inward gaze at words, believing inspiration comes when most lonely, hopeless, through mostly stubbornness and endurance with hope and discontentment with life.  

Peering out from behind his curtained windows in his little house in Northern Ireland, Hugh Vaughan's childhood couldn't have been anything other than interesting. The hustle and bustle of life in his little corner of the world captivated the youngster, who like many of his era, learned the lessons than only such an experience could bring. Cups of tea, bread toasted by the fire, the mother's knitting and slaloms through the clothes line made it a typical Irish upbringing for Hugh, and he takes us delightfully through life's little journeys and a much simpler time in 'A Bump On The Road' (Stories of an Irish Childhood). Buy the books here

The innocent years before secondary school are recalled as are movies featuring John Wayne and cowboys and Indians in an era when parents did not hover over their children but allowed them to amuse themselves by playing with mates in the street. Family secrets were, at the threat of real physical harm, hushed by the stares of Hugh's mother, and then there was the day the Saracen armored cars roared down the crescent in which he lived. Contains 168 pages, 45140 words. Sample story Run 

A Bump on the Road is now a FREE ebook available in Smashwords. Obtain the FREE ebook here.

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© Hugh Vaughan 2023