Continuing the dip into the detail of Time and tide – more first lines, this time from the Stories:
Elizabeth Hopkinson, A Madras Crossing: I thought the worst of the voyage was over when we weighed anchor off the coast of Madras.
Diana Powell, Ballast: Let me speak to you about the sea… how I always loved it.
Diana Powell, Sea Change, There are voices here.
Cathy Lennon, Casting The Stones: The party went out of the garden gate and set off along the duckboards.
Neil Lawrence, Diaspora: The man with huge whiskers is talking loudly.
Juliet Humphreys, Fisherfolk: In Quay Street, when a woman begins to moan with the coming of a child, word goes out.
Holly Magee, Granmama’s Paradise: When I was little, I slurred my syllables together.
Linda McMullen, The Fisherman’s Wife: When I met my husband, he was a modest clerk at a promising company.
Eoghan Hughes, Herr Dressler: I had left the Alma at closing time and was stumbling along the breakwater the first night I saw the light at sea.
Pauline Walker, Hingland: Constance was only just beginning to enjoy the voyage.
Roppotucha Greenberg, Listen, Noah’s Wife: He’ll install a foghorn to sound every night.
Emily Bullock, Man Overboard: All dreams of death can be forgotten on waking, except when under that final sleep from which there is no waking and only a long forgetting.
CB Droege, Metharme: I stand at the prow of the ship, one more in a long, long line of ships.
Kilmeny Macmichael, Remittance: Sir inform have not received expected amount this first of month reason
Barbara Renel, The Professor’s Daughter: Her dad locks the booth and gives her the key.
Paul Foy, The Answer, My Friend: It might be that the day takes you down to the beach with your book and wraparound sunglasses, your Beats and that blast-from-the-past playlist that you made when you realised that loss is all about finding again.
Rob Walton, The Dowager Duchess Of Berwick-Upon-Tweed: She hated the Dowager bit, and she no longer particularly cared for the Duchess part, but she had not yet decided what to do about any of it.
Maria Kyle, The Surgeon’s Mate: ’Tis no easy matter to cut off a man’s leg.
Cindy George, The Wreck Of The Kyllikki: Sea coal just washes up on the beach and no one knows where it comes from.
Sheila Lockhart, Turquoise: Every morning after breakfast Ibrahim walked down to the perimeter fence to look at the sea.

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