I creep into the back of the church, hoping that no-one will notice me.

The church is decrepit and cold, decay dripping from its pores. My eyes focus on the coffin, perched there in awesome desolation. Was it only three weeks . . .

THOMAS had read somewhere that it's 22 yards between the wickets on a cricket pitch, but this was nowhere near that.

When he was Freddie Trueman bowling to the Aussie's Neil Harvey, he thought the gap between the wickets was the same as it was on the real pitch, but that was a long time ago when Thomas and his best pal Geoffrey spent their summers re-enacting Test matches on The Green, an oasis between rows of anonymous council houses. The Green had six trees of various species spread around it which, in their imagination, provided the perfect Test match arena for the boys.

 THE room – well you could hardly call it a room, more like a cupboard – was a dump.

 The walls had been painted lime green, probably by someone doing community service for dealing mind-blowing drugs, the sink was clogged with some disgusting discharge.

Once there was a girl, she was a good girl, but she was very, very greedy. She would eat anything. She would eat cows, dogs - she would even eat the earth from under your feet.

One day, her parents decided that they had had enough; she was eating them out of house and home.  'Go away', they said. 'You are too greedy. We don't want you anymore.  Go and find yourself a rich husband who can afford to feed you.'

A girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her, and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things.

He said to her: “What will you call me?”

“Master or mister, or whatever you please sir,” says she.

He said: “You must call me ’master of all masters.’

One fine summer's day Earl Mar's daughter went into the castle garden, dancing and tripping along. And as she played and sported she would stop from time to time to listen to the music of the birds. After a while as she sat under the shade of a green oak-tree she looked up and spied a sprightly dove sitting high up on one of its branches.

She looked up and said: 'Coo-my-dove, my dear, come down to me and I will give you a golden cage. I'll take you home and pet you well, as well as any bird of them all.' Scarcely had she said these words when the dove flew down from the branch and settled on her shoulder, nestling up against her neck while she smoothed its feathers. Then she took it home to her own room.