Graham Lawrence

Writer, Publisher, Retired

Tag: real life (Page 1 of 2)

Luck - A story by Graham Lawrence is the story of a man from New Orleans who came to Asia as a soldier in the 70s and lived a troubled life. The picture shows a wistful black man.

Luck

November 29, 2024 / / 2 Comments

Perpetual good or bad luck is something that seems to follow some people you meet on the traveler or expat circuit. It is not something all or even many possess, but a few seem to just be gifted or cursed with it.

Bernard was not a lucky man. Maybe not as unlucky as British Steve, but unlucky nevertheless. Nearly everything he did turned to disaster. Now some will say that luck – good or bad is something you make for yourself. And in Bernard’s case this may be true to some extent. Maybe it was his criminality that had an effect on this; maybe it was his belief in how smart he was that had an effect. It was true that Bernard thought he was smarter than most, and that he could always get one over on others. It was not, however, a trait that sprang to mind when others thought of Bernard whoever those others were. But one thing all would agree on, was that Bernard was unlucky.

Continue reading
Sweeping Up is a story by Graham Lawrence. It is part of the Tales from the Village series. The picture shows a Thai woman sweeping up.

Sweeping Up

September 18, 2024 / / 0 Comments

It is almost two years now, and I suppose it is time to record the actual true events before they fade or my memory decides to exclude such things that don’t fit with preconceived and taught ideas typical of someone raised in the rational and heartless late 60’s and 70’s. It also seems fitting as I sit once more, where I did that day, on the raised dot mypai with a pencil and cheap paper notebook feeling the breeze from the small green fan as the heat of the summer rises once more past body temperature.

Continue reading
Cock - A story by Graham Lawrence. The picture shows a fire

Cock

June 17, 2024 / / 2 Comments

So, there was I crawling on all fours around a damp dark smelly room, dressed in rubber boots and rubber gauntlets, looking for cock.

*****

It was a warm sunny day with clear skies except for the occasional tiny white cloud bouncing in the sea of blue. The warmth hit me and a first drip of perspiration rolled down my neck. It was a lovely day to go out and do something worthwhile on – May in England could sometimes but not often be like this. Oh there I go again. Right British. Already going on about the weather. Apologies for that. Let’s get back to the story. So where was I? Oh yes, a lovely day. What could I spend it doing? But I already knew. The local non-league football team had a game at home, and I would take the long 2 mile walk from my parent’s home, where I was visiting, to the ground and enjoy the game. The team were doing well and it should be an easy win.

Continue reading
Cowboy - A story by Graham Lawrence. The picture shows Soi Cowboy where the story takes place

Cowboy

April 16, 2024 / / 6 Comments

Manchester Andy, now there is someone to remember from the Cowboy days. He had an art degree, two in fact. He was also a real practicing artist producing paintings and sculptures at a prodigious rate. The styles of these were quite conservative and maybe not to everyone’s taste. Not being an artist, I am far too ignorant to know what label or labels to use to name his art, but all in all it wasn’t bad in my opinion.

Andy came to Thailand after finishing his Master’s degree and if I remember correctly a well paying job not connected with art in the United Kingdom. He arrived in Bangkok. with a fresh tourist visa in hand, an expensive backpack and a nice set of clothes. Andy had plans to do the usual “break from life” tour of Asia – Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, India and Nepal. He actually had no plans after that but intended to head back to the UK and do something with his art. He had made a lot of money from his well paying job, which had been added to buy sale of his artworks and a small inheritance from a distant relative. Andy was set.

Sometimes, though, fate has this way of interfering in the best laid plans and creating a new and different destiny for us.

Continue reading
The Eggman - A Tale of eggs by Graham Lawrence. The picture shows a grey seascape of Bangsaen

The Eggman

March 14, 2024 / / 2 Comments

It was around seven or eight years ago that I first noticed him, this aging man. Quite exactly how old he was, was hard to tell as he had the start of a curved back and looked constantly at the floor with his bewhiskered jowls hanging from each side of his mouth. His hair was white or silver, but not in a distinguished looking way, but more in a mop of short but unkempt hair hanging over his head and flopping down onto his forehead as he shuffled forward with his brown scuffed sandals around his brown feet and his blue fisherman pants swaying with movement and breeze. His arched back inside his plaid long-sleeved shirt was letting out a little perspiration as he lugged the wide basket containing his collection of about thirty boiled eggs. He manoeuvred from table to table along the stretch of seawall at Laem Than where the young people sat and drank and chatted trying to sell an egg or two or three at each table for the drinkers to snack on. Occasionally he was even successful in getting someone to buy three eggs in a little plastic bag with a small sachet of sauce as he manoeuvred surprisingly rapidly between the jovial groups.

Continue reading
Jesus - A story by Graham Lawrence. picture shows Jesus

Jesus

January 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

When I was a child my sister had this picture bible for kids, which had been given to her by her god mother. It was a large hardback book with many pictures and some chosen stories extracted from the bible such as Moses and the parting of the waves, some parables, Jesus and the feeding of the many, and ones like that. But what I mostly remembered it for was the picture on the front. The hardback book had one of those glossy front and back covers that tucked into the front and back book covers. On the front of this was the name and a picture of a young man in sandals and flowing white robes with a hand held out with long blonde or golden locks, a light beard and blue eyes. Behind him was a blazing sun that left a halo round his head.

I was sitting at one of the stone tables at Mr. Bow’s just off of Tanao Road looking down the soi past the dogs, motorcycles and the occasional worker who were drifting in and out of the shophouses. It was hot, but the sun was falling and the temperature would soon drop. For now, though the sun was blazing lower into my eyes causing me to squint and think of moving bench. But the benches round the table were taken by the others sitting with me, but they were chatting to each other. I was both alone and surrounded at the same time, but in one of those late afternoon thoughtful, quiet periods that hit you in the tropics just letting my mind run over whatever came into it as I looked away from the table and around where I was but not really taking in the run down shophouses, wooden buildings and greenery or the little alley off the side that led back to where I had come from.

At some point my wandering gaze caused me to look back down the soi towards the road that ran past the distant post office and barbers and on towards the cheaper guest houses where some of the growing African community stayed. There was someone coming towards me. At first, they were a silhouette or shadow with the sinking sun right behind them. The intense light caused my eyes to struggle at first. I squinted as little drops of water ran from my eyes. But this quickly passed and I saw the figure near with a vast light around their head. The closer they came, the more I saw. The approaching figure was a young man in sandals and flowing white robes with long blonde or golden locks, a light beard and blue eyes. Behind him the blazing sun still left a glowing golden halo around his head.

This was my first ever encounter with Jesus.

Continue reading
Family - A story in the Tales from the Village series by Graham Lawrence. The licture shows old buildings in Laplae, Uttaradit

Family

December 16, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Nim was a family man. Like many poor farmers in the villages of rural Thailand he held strong beliefs. All he lived for were his wife, daughters, nephews and any other member of the extended family. Not a wealthy man and one who was blighted by every farming venture he tried turning to dust in his hands, but one who surrounded by family remained happy and upbeat.

Now a few years ago it just so happened that Nim’s latest venture into a new piece of farming machinery, or was it a new crop had gone disastrously and predictably wrong resulting in another pressing debt that needed to be paid off. It wasn’t a time of year when work was plentiful in Uttaradit, so being illiterate the only option was a trip to one of the building sites of central Thailand for months of daily toil until enough was saved to cover the lost farm investment. Leaving the family would be hard but having the family land repossessed would only leave them landless and forced to leave the village, so there was no option. Tum, Nim’s friend, recommended a site in Rayong in the industrial east of the country where they could both go.

Continue reading
Cuz - A memoir piece and story by Graham Lawrence. Picture of a Butterfly just from a caterpillar

Cuz

November 28, 2023 /

I met Jenny Lawrence, cuz, while working in homelessness in a winter night shelter for young adults in Sydenham, South London. The shelter got an extended life beyond winter under a Housing Association, and it would carry on as a homeless shelter for a few years. The building was pretty impressive for a homeless night shelter. It had been the training dormitory for a bank previously. There were single rooms for each guest and the building was divided into two parts – one for men and one for women. There was a communal TV room, a large canteen with a large kitchen, a laundry and a store for used for donated clothes.

Continue reading
Help - A story by Graham Lawrence. Picture of Mekong River from Laos

Help

November 2, 2023 /

I knew Neil about twenty years ago. I did not know him well. I did not know him badly. He had had a long and interesting life and had seen dark times, but come out the other side a positive and kind person, which if you knew his story is quite an achievement. I was in my 40s back then and he a lot older and from a different time to me. He was now happily married and settled, doing a part-time job and was one of the people to help me with work, although now he was thinking of retirement.

I was sitting in a Pattaya bar with Neil drinking a beer, and he a coke. He had long since stopped drinking the grog as he liked to call it. He had asked me about what I had done before coming to Thailand and had talked about his life. We talked about the challenges of life living away from home. It was then that he told me this story, which had happened a few years before.

Continue reading
« Older posts

Graham on Facebook

Graham on Pinterest

Visit Graham's profile on Pinterest.

© 2024 Graham Lawrence

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑