Niall James Bradley
Bio
I am a teacher who lives in the north west of England. I write about many subjects, but mainly I write non-fiction about things that interest me, fiction about what comes into my head and poetry about how I feel.
Stories (56)
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The Handless Corpse
The Delph was a stone quarry. Years before, it had closed its gates for the final time and the stone cutting had ceased. In one corner of the quarry, a spring had ruptured out of the bedrock and slowly, over the years, the Delph had flooded. Everything had been consumed by the waters: the stone workings and the office building until all that was visible was a placid lake with sheer cliffs on all sides, except for the end where the access road disappeared into the water. Only a solitary telegraph pole and winding wheel breaking the surface, hinted at what actually lay in the depths beneath.
By Niall James Bradley5 years ago in Criminal
Nil Poi
2021 saw a new low for the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. For the first time, the UK got exactly no points from either the national jury vote or the popular vote. However, the real question needs to be: Does coming last in the competition really mean you are a loser?
By Niall James Bradley5 years ago in Beat
Teaching Your Children To Cook
My mum can cook. She can cook and bake the most amazing food. And she never kept her four children out of the kitchen: we were brought up in the kitchen, cleaning the pots, cut the vegetables and learning how to feed ourselves.
By Niall James Bradley5 years ago in Families
Picture Perfect
Jane waited in fearful expectation, staring at her computer screen. She glanced once more around the room, especially at the bookcase behind her. It had taken her hours to perfect the bookcase: to arrange the books so it would reflect how she was a person of interest and in no way weird. Just the correct number of mementos from holidays abroad and her favourite picture of Toby. Why had he left her? She so missed their long walks together. This time in Lockdown would have been perfect, had he still been alive. They could have used the time she wasn’t wasting, commuting to work, to go on longer walks so he could have had more treats. Maybe, she thought, it was all those treats that had killed him. Either that or old age!
By Niall James Bradley5 years ago in Humans
Why Missing A Year Of School Isn’t The End Of The World?
It has been a turbulent year for the pupils of this country. This time last year, the experience of a national lockdown was still novel and exciting. Now, the children of Britain are wearily exiting their third lockdown, having spent a year yo-yoing in and out of school. The British government say that missing a whole year of education could be catastrophic for their educational development, but are they correct? There are many examples of famous people who have achieved massively in life while missing out on their education, but I will focus on just one.
By Niall James Bradley5 years ago in FYI
The Dragon Master's Son 4 & 5
Chapter 4 It was almost exactly as John had imagined a cell. Three sides were plain stone wall and one side was a grill of steel. He had also imagined a small, grated window, but no window was there. John was alone in his cell, in the dark. The guard had taken the solitary torch away with him. Not that John needed it. An owl charm meant he could see perfectly well, even in this poor light.
By Niall James Bradley5 years ago in Futurism
The Mother Of The Sea
Even if you have never eaten it, you will recognise sushi. There are Sushi restaurants all around the world and over 4000 in the US alone. The small cylinders of rice, wrapped in dark green seaweed are iconic. But did you know that the seaweed, nori, which is so ubiquitously used to make sushi, used to have the name ‘lucky’ grass, as it was so rare? Did you know that until an English scientist, Kathleen Drew-Baker, conducted her research, nori could not be successfully farmed? In Japan, this almost unknown English scientist is known as the ‘Mother Of The Sea.’
By Niall James Bradley5 years ago in FYI
The Dragon Master's Son 3
Chapter 3 John stood in the stone bowels of the castle. The room was large with an extremely high ceiling. Somewhere, way up in the murky rafters, he could make out birds flying. The lack of even a single window made it necessary for a fire, even now in the middle of summer, for light. The stone walls leached heat from the room. Even with the fire, which filled the enormous hearth, John found his teeth were chattering.
By Niall James Bradley5 years ago in Futurism
