Author: Thomas Kelly

  Summer Term 1965 Manor House was a very traditional English boarding prep school. The teachers were unqualified but enthusiastic. Winco taught us maths, he had been in the RAF and Squeaky Norman history. He had been a POW in Thailand hence his voice. All the masters smoked, the trainee matrons were objects of our…

It is often said that if you want a friend, get a dog or better still two dogs. And so escaping from the sadness of my mother’s house for a few moments, I found a dog friendly cafe in the High Street of Chard. This is a gem of a place with local art on…

Life in Chard is terribly hard I am alone with my two dogs walking in the rain as usual around the circumference of Snowdon Park in Chard. They trot with claws clicking on the path, blinking as rain hits them. This is a lovely open space which is much used and well loved. The asphalt…

One of my clients was a fabulously wealthy Sheikh who lived in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. His background was as strange as he was. A Kuwaiti by birth, he managed to marry into one of the largest and therefore influential families in the Kingdom, The Algusaibis. From that he built an empire with…

I did this quick painting this morning. I captured this picture last week and wanted to convey the sense of his age, his unshapely cap and his pale blue eyes.

There is an old adage. One should never work with children and animals on stage. I would add the Royal Family to that list. Prince Michael had taken eight consultancy posts in British companies such as Land Rover, BT and the Post Office. How he came to us remained a mystery. However earlier in the…

The Russians sat in silence looking at the carpet occasionally switching and shifting their feet from one ankle to another. Their fingers were stained as yellow as their teeth and Olga needed to have a better diet. I had asked Chandran to copy their passports and I was filling in the application forms. It was…

The directors of the Bank of Bermuda were seduced by the Middle East. Back in 1996 there was a clear choice between Bahrain, a solid and safe developed centre for banking and then Dubai which although was slow to develop no doubt had big expansion plans. There were pros and cons of course but after…

The early morning in Bermuda is pink. Pink racing clouds across the sky, pink buildings and pink Bermuda shorts. And not to mention pink eyes from too much Goslings rum, I had decided to wear shorts and wandered down to Trimingham’s the family run shop on Front Street. Trimingham, one of the oldest families in…

The usual day flight to Hamilton Bermuda seemed full of rather well-fed bankers and executives.  They clucked and boasted to each other like fat hens, clinking their wine glasses and making surreptitious looks to the stewardess assigned to their cabin. It was like a bus to them. Tourists and hospitality workers to the island were…