What I liked about ‘A Fall of Snow’ was how authentic and natural it read. Nicholas, the narrator, tells of a marking event which happened to him on Christmas when he was fifteen, visiting his uncle in the snowy countryside. The snow plays the central role in the story, but it has a dark edge to it, because it shows an unknown landscape and hides familiarity. “Where before I knew my way about, now everything, the fields, the trees, the church, even the cottages of my uncle’s estate, was strange and terrifying”. When Nicholas and his cousin ride the sledge across snow-covered fields, a terrible accident happens, which shapes his memories of that winter. The occurrence marks the young Nicholas and leaves him in fear of snow, though he barely admits that to himself. What makes the story so resonant is the way it captures the presence of childhood memories in adult life. The memory of that terrible winter clings to the narrator as a fixed image, bright and unwavering with time, as a photograph which can’t be edited nor burnt away.

First published in Staircase to the Sea, Kimber, 1974