Author makes short work of park tale

22 July 2009

Author Nicola Barker

A NEW book set in Greenwich Park has been published to celebrate the town's heritage as a literary destination.

Docklands author Nicola Barker's short story, By Force of Will, Alone, tells the tale of Sydney Figge, a Greenwich institution but unlikely candidate to be the unofficial Mayor in the town.

Her book is part of a new series celebrating the eight Royal Parks with stories based around each of them.

Nicola, of Wapping, knows Greenwich well and said it was the most interesting park to write about by a mile.

"It's a story about a man from Deptford who becomes Mayor of Greenwich, unofficially," she said. "There is an actual Mayor of Greenwich already, of course. A very worthy man; a good man.

"Sydney Figge is neither good nor worthy. That's why people like him. He's an opportunist, irresponsible, enjoys a drink. But he's a real Greenwich indigene, a total curmudgeon. He's an unofficial landmark."

Barker has been writing short stories as well as novels for the past 20 years and said it was fashionable in the literary world at the moment to write them.

"People probably think it's easier to write short stories because they're only little, but in my opinion they can be much harder to manage. The good ones, that is.

"The way I see it, short stories are like sneezes, novels are like a dose of the 'flu.

"Sneezes are the closest you can get to an orgasm without removing your clothing. That's basically how I like to approach them."

Each story is pocket size so it can be read easily on a park bench or a picnic blanket.

For more information see www.parkstories.org.uk.