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Graham Bathgate

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2024

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13 Stories

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Young Lads and Ladies of the Night in Paris, 1963

Weekly Contest #350

Young Lads and Ladies of the Night – Paris, 1963 My mother took my cousin Billy and me as young teenagers to Paris for a couple of weeks in each of two summers, 1963 and 1964. One night we were walking in the red-light district of Pigalle, betimes watching the street performers in the shape of fire-eaters, dancers and jugglers, betimes ambling along looking at the shops, cafés and lights. Suddenly Billy took an interest in a dim alley. He asked his Auntie Ella about the women he could see standing in doorways. They were theatrically dresse...

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One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Yen

Weekly Contest #347

(For Reedsy’s Prompts, March 27, 2026)Contest 347 - Write a story about a character who believes something that isn’t true. One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Yen “You should be in prison!” I told him straight, no regrets for the ill-will which he totally deserved. I knew I could condemn with impunity, as I was the President. He deserved incarceration for negligence! At the very least dismissal from the teachers’ union. Gordon Gooding, the Treasurer of our English language school union, my Treasurer, I should say, wasn’t complying with my deman...

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No More Blues

Weekly Contest #344

Reedsy Prompts Topic:Tell a story through diary/journal entries, transcriptions, and/or newspaper clippings. No More Blues! OK, this will be rather a long journal entry here. I want to be able to recall ways to fix feeling blue, feeling down. I want to create a card with information on it to help people in the same way I got help.We have all experienced being a bit off colour or under the weather. It happened to me badly last week, but I managed to fix it pretty quickly and simply. So no more blues! Leastways for the present.I managed to get...

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My End in Sight?

Weekly Contest #336

For Reedsy Competition Number 336Write a story entirely in dialogue (e.g., an argument or a conversation that spirals out of control). My End in Sight? GB is visiting his local doctor (Doc.). Doc: Listen, this may come as a surprise to you but there are signs that you require a colonoscopy. It’s just to be on the safe side. GB: God, I wish I hadn’t mentioned my haemorrhoids to you. Doc: Well, you did and I have to take action. At least you don’t have any bleeding, abdominal cramps, irritable bowel syndrome or rectal secretions. Or do you? Y...

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Fire on Sadogashima

Weekly Contest #335

CW: Natural disaster For Reedsy by Jan. 2Write a story where something doesn’t go according to plan. Fire on Sadogashima 1. “The fire god, although destructive by his very nature, and feared by mortals, is not evil and does what he can for mankind, providing them with light, warmth, a means of cooking, and the heat for forging weapons and tools. However, if the people affront him by neglecting his worship, he has been known to burn cities to the ground.” (Wikipedia) 2. Sado is an island off the north-west coast of Honshu Island. In Japanes...

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The Passport Pages

Weekly Contest #332

For Reedsy Competition“Under the weather” phrase to include. The Passport Pages by Graham Bathgate “They’ll turn you back at Heathrow,” she said like a judge pronouncing a sentence. A mixture of emotions welled up in me: incredulity, impatience, even getting a tad upset. Here we go again, I thought, another brush with bureaucracy but this time really bad. I had a feeling that I was dealing with a dangerously deranged official, someone more than a bit under the weather in her job. Still, there was something that gave me cause for pause – s...

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Two Past Diggings

Weekly Contest #329

Prompt: Write a story that includes the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night,” “Skeletons in the closet,” or “Digging up the past.” Two Past Diggings I have the good fortune to be able to recall pleasant work and events from over 50 years ago. I can easily dig up the past both literally and metaphorically. I often think how enjoyable my life has been, so it could be said that I really dig (sic) my past. There are a few other kinds of memory here along with the good times. I hope from reading this “story” you can appreciate them, too. ...

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I Aye Mind my Life

Weekly Contest #328

Reedsy StoryInclude the line: “I remember… ” Title: I Aye Mind My Life I remember (or in Scots, “I aye mind”) a long life of many events, most of them happy, some regretful. For this story I’ll try to keep to the happy side of my memories. I recall quite sharply a lot of my long life, even from very early on. For example, I oft mind as a baby some moments of being on an aeroplane going from my birthplace in the Orkney Islands to the big infirmary in Edinburgh for an operation to fix an abscess in my ear. I survived that but a year later I ma...

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Lucky Cat in Japan

Weekly Contest #327

One roasting Saturday morning in July, 2001 in Takadanobaba, Tokyo, I was rescued by a couple of New Zealanders who heard me, a kitten, give a pitiful meow in a nearby park. From their third floor balcony they saw me weak and struggling. They came out and found me all alone in the intense heat, trying to climb up some steps, as if to find some shelter or succour. They picked me up and took me home to the safety and security of their apartment. This rescue would prove to be successful, very happy for me, but costly for them. They called me “J...

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Pick-up on a Paris Street?

Weekly Contest #325

Pick-up on a Paris Street? On a four-day stay in Paris in July, 2010, I was prepared for a little adventure, not the French kind of “aventure” but just a little happening out of the ordinary. I am always on the lookout for something or someone beyond simple sightseeing as I walk strange streets, and that’s all I do really, because all the usual wonderful sights have been seen, so now I just wander or “flâner” as the French say. I delight in encountering things out of the ordinary, a little unusual incident perhaps, something a trifle outré, ...

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The Rock'n'Roll Doctor

Weekly Contest #285

The Rock ’n’ Roll DoctorI remember well the visit to the doctor in the foreign land although it was over 20 years ago, etched on my memory because the doctor was, putting it mildly, quite a character. He was also a Rock’n’Roll afficionado which put us on a solid footing. I also remember that rightly or wrongly I decided not to tell him I was also a doctor, causing me to recall ruefully that it would have been easier if I had owned up to a similar background. But then it was the South of France and I didn’t wish to declare a contrast between ...

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One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Yen

Weekly Contest #276

“You should be in prison!” I told him straight, no regrets for the ill-will which he totally deserved. I knew I could condemn with impunity, as I was the President. He deserved incarceration for negligence! At the very least dismissal from the union. Gordon Gooding, the Treasurer of our English language school union … my Treasurer wasn’t complying with my demands for access to the financial records. Seized by the conviction he was botching the books, I deftly concluded that he was fleecing our teachers’ union fund.  As President of the...

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The "Corpse"

Weekly Contest #275

The “Corpse” The following is full of real events and people. Of course, a lot of it is wildly imagined, such as the kirk, the minister, the coffin and the remembrance service – some of this will be activated in future!   “Thank you, thank you, now please leave the lid off,” I said to the kirk minister, Mr McTaggart. His tiny rural kirk was in north-east Scotland in whose heathery hills I had run about as a child, very fitting for my farewell. He had kindly provided wobbly wooden steps for me to go up and drop down into the fine sh...

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