Page 70 - Phonebox Magazine July 2016

Three Short Stories
JThe Widow – Jane Burdiak
ane Burdiak’s new book, ‘The but can rub alongside her interests, her love Sporting Widow’, incorporating three of big skies and breaking waves. Factual, short stories, was published on 30th quirky and full of surprises, ‘The Sporting June 2016. Widow’ is set apart from other biographies
Ever since the 1966 World Cup, sport has and autobiographies, the stories are written
featured in Jenny’s day. Knowing little and caring even less about any sport, she has in that time absorbed facts and gures, rules, venues, and player’s names from her husband Jim and the wall to wall coverage on television.
In her usual ‘Life Writing’ style, ‘Jenny and Jim go Fishing’, ‘Weather, Wine and Wickets’ and ‘Brazil Nuts’ capture Jim’s lifelong sporting passions of fishing, cricket and football. Threading through the aforesaid sports, other strands blur the picture, Jenny and Jim’s loyal companionship, memories, travelling and people mingle, bringing the sports to life, making them real for Jenny.
Subsequently for Jenny, her albeit limited knowledge of sport is no longer pigeonholed
from Jenny’s point of view. Strictly speaking, Jenny’s attitude to most sports is indifferent. Although often irritated with the hyped-up sporting industry, sometimes shallow and irrelevant, players wrapped in egos as big as their bank balances, she cannot fail to be swept along with her husband’s passion for sport.
In the rst story ‘Jenny and Jim go Fishing’, Jim wrestles with the sad loss of a dear longstanding friend and asks Jenny to write about fishing. Prizing the minute details was painstaking but over time, reminiscing helped him to come to terms with his friend’s death. In June 2013 Jenny and Jim took a holiday bungalow on the River Thurne in Norfolk. ‘Jenny and Jim go Fishing’ is about
their week away and Jim’s sentimental longing. Why had he not returned?
Eight years ago Jenny and Jim went to Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test. Even as a novice, Jenny was completely blown away by the experience and planned, on reaching retirement, to return. ‘Weather, Wine
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70 Phonebox Magazine | July 2016
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