Characters

(29th August 2012 Signing on at 18:33)

This is something new. I’m going to try writing some descriptions of characters some are real(ish) some are not.

Fionnuala Goggin: The girl in the phone shop. Long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, piercing blue eyes, light blue uniform shirt and dark blue slacks.

Finbar 1: Short and squat, a powerhouse of a man, with a low forehead topped with a tousled shock of black hair. He has swarthy features to go with his calling. His eyebrows are bushy and meet above his nose, creating a single stroke underlining his brow. He wears a dirty dark blue boiler suit and black steel toe-capped boots. Finbar’s main business is sweeping chimneys but he also does external painting work and works as a volunteer fireman, so perhaps as a sweep he prevents some of the fires he would otherwise have to put out.

Finbar 2: A rotund, unshaved publican wearing a flat cap and round glasses. He is usually seen in a grubby round-neck sweater of indeterminate colour. He has greying brindled hair to match his two wolfhounds. His pub has no till, instead he has a row of plastic tubs containing coins and notes on the back shelf behind the bar. This is the only pub I know which combines the business of a coal-merchant with that of a publican. As a result it is also the only pub I know which has a sticker advertising “Calor Gas” on the mirror behind the spirit optics. I haven’t heard anyone ask for a nip of Calor yet, but maybe someday someone will get that desperate!

Pauline: A large elderly lady with her own little pub. She has a rare gift of getting her customers to talk to one-another. There are no strangers in Pauline’s bar, if they come in strangers they do not remain so for long. She has curly hair which is dyed dark brown. As a result nobody (except for her immediate family) is sure of her age and nobody is impolite enough to ask. She wears a floral dress underneath an apron. As well as running the bar, she sells sacks of potatoes grown on the family farm.

Archie: Tall and lean. Rarely seen with a jacket on during the day. Instead he wears a collarless striped shirt beneath a charcoal grey waistcoat. Across his belly he has a silver watch chain. In one waistcoat pocket is his steel hunter watch, in the other, when it is not clenched between his teeth, is his short stubby pipe. On his head is a dark grey cap. He has a grey boot-brush moustache. He wears his shirt sleeves  rolled up above the elbows showing the muscles of his, still powerful, arms. He wears his trousers short with the turn-ups stopping short of his black, mud-caked boots.

When Archie was a young man he was a farrier.  He was the son of the blacksmith. He used to work stripped to the waist in the forge. In the semi darkness the light of the forge fire reflected on his sweaty torso. That was many years ago. The forge is long gone and Archie hasn’t shoed a horse in fifty years.

Neil: Neil is tall and muscular. He wears a blue nylon boiler suite beneath a shabby, olive-green topcoat. He wears his cap at a jaunty angle. His cheeks are polished and he wears eau-de-cologne.

Willy: Willy is a bear of a man. His huge beard is now streaked with grey, which only intensifies his piratical appearance. He wears a dark Breton seaman’s cap on his head.

Liam: Liam is a big man with a barrel chest. He has greying black hair and big muscular hands. He works as a forester and it is easy to imagine him swinging an axe. He smokes a briar pipe which he fills with fragrant aromatic tobacco.

Len:  A wizened little man. Small built with quick gestures and movements. He is bald except for some tufts of grey above his ears and a little around the dark. His eyes are grey and his eyeballs protrude from their sockets, giving him the appearance of a startled frog. He wears the waistcoat and trousers from a light grey check suit but has never been seen to wear the jacket. He toils away in his garden, still wearing a tie. When gardening he wears leather gardening gloves.

The Doctor: Tall and broad shouldered. His skin has a peculiar complexion, dark olive with an underlying, and surprising, hint of green! The whites of his eyes are bloodshot with an unhealthy looking yellow tint. His hairline is receding increasing the apparent height of his already striking forehead. His hair is completely white, contrasting shockingly with his skin.      

 (Pages 1.5, words 803, signing off at 19:37 )