Remembered Fragments - Review by Colum Sands

In 'Remembered Fragments', Stephen Shellard opens up new rooms of thought in a world that longs to look through the same windows from as many different angles as possible.

In marking his unique place within a territory where who-owns-what-space is often a highly contentious issue, the County Down born writer blends sharp observation, humour and affection to call up memories from the people, the music, the meeting places, the watering holes and the dance halls of growing up around the beautiful shores of Carlingford Lough in the second half of the last century.

Along the way he makes a wry and memorable note on the potential for chaos amidst the weave of political and religious life in and around his home border-town of Newry :

“The fractious nature of left-wing student politics, the territory where I supposed somewhere my own views would be best represented, bore some resemblance to the schismatic history of the Protestant churches in Northern Ireland…

“The thing which held all these groups in an uneasy alliance was opposition to Catholicism, which, so far as I could tell, they believed would threaten their right to an existence in which they might be free to dispute with one another.”

His turn of phrase here echoes the investigation of what Paul Graham has described as the “Hierarchy of Disagreement.”

Stephen Shellard’s writing is a tonic that offers honest storytelling and new perspectives of guidance on that elusive road from dispute towards “a higher level of disagreement”.

Remembered Fragments is available to purchase from Amazon either as a paperback or as a Kindle edition.