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When Sandy stepped off the grass onto the fine sand that constituted the divide between beach and dry land or town or promenade or whatever else the bit that isn’t seaside for a English summer resort is described as in the brochures that are piled on station benches inviting the reader to sample tea rooms and fish restaurants, film screenings, concerts comedians, or tarot readings, he felt only the sand between his toes and relief. For, you see, his full name was Sandy Shaw, spelt ‘AW’, a name that seemed to proffer something special, namely the invitation to play upon the spelling of ‘Shaw’ and ‘shore’ to connect name and surname such that a location emerged. ‘A sandy shore’ is where he felt he belonged and where the full extent of the coincidences that furnished his life with meaning could be stacked like chocolate bars in a platform vending machine, waiting patiently to be consumed in order of likeability. An unlikely metaphor, unless you appreciate that Sandy’s breakfast today constituted exactly that single ingredient. Further coincidences follow. Sandy Shaw was a name already taken by a chanteuse of the 1960s, the song entitled ‘A Puppet on a String’ her claim to fame and a lifelong favourite of our Sandy. Sandy Shaw’s (chanteuse) insistence on going barefoot to counteract her unusual dimensions of nearly six foot in height a novelty shared by our Sandy, who, at nearly seven foot, was probably the tallest Sandy Shaw of either spelling in the world – a title unlikely to be challenged, given that nobody was likely to care, which, cutting to the chase, lays bare the cruellest coincidence: that despite claims to specialness sprung from this series of striking coincidences, everybody believed Sandy to be remarkable only as a freak, ignorant of his true unremakableness.
Or so they thought. But
As his toes bathed in the gritty warmth of clean, fine sand, Sandy didn’t hear the voices or read the headlines or overhear the gossip or grasp the gag. Instead, relief turned slowly to bliss as he drew a slighty molten chocolate bar from his upturned trousers and sunk his teeth into his favourite flavour.
Plain.
August 2025