... and here are the other 11 lit tle gems from our shortlist

NEW BEGINNINGS

HE HAD never felt so wretched or responsible seeing the pain and fear etched on her tired, tear-stained face. ‘I’m sorry.’ It sounded so futile. This was the woman who had shared his life and his name for eight years and he knew after this everything would change forever.

‘I hate you,’ she hissed at him as he tried to take her hand in a vain attempt to offer meagre comfort.

Turning away, tears now stinging his own eyes, he just wished this could all be over – for both of them.

‘Congratulations Mr Roberts, you have a beautiful baby daughter.’

DISCOUNTED

MARK always wondered what it was like to sleep on the streets in the midst of winter. Now he knew.

He was cold and wet, despite the sleeping bag providing some comfort. As the heavy rain fell, most people who passed by looked at him as if he were mad, but his spirits were lifted by the occasional smile.

The light faded from the sky and the streets emptied. He snuggled deeper into the sleeping bag to find more warmth.

Above him, a large neon sign flashed SALE in the department store’s window. All for a discounted sofa, he sighed. Steven Matz, 56, Harrow, North London

ONE GOOD TURN

THE job interview could change his life for ever. He couldn’t be late.

And then the old lady next door knocked, note in hand, and breathlessly asked him to call her daughter, Isla – before promptly collapsing.

Following the emergency operator’s instructions, he kept her breathing until the ambulance arrived.

He rang the daughter explaining the situation. She said she would be eternally grateful.

The interview was blown; but he phoned to apologise, anyway. The secretary had been trying to contact him. The interviews were postponed because the HR Director, Miss Isla McPhail, had to attend to her seriously ill mother. Arthur Row, 68, Blyth, Northumberland

MAKING AN ENTRANCE

‘THEY’RE lovely,’ said Geoff. ‘I thought I’d never see them.’

‘Yes,’ came the reply, ‘people wait a lifetime to see them and some don’t get the opportunity.’

Geoff admired the pearlescent sheen of the ironwork and hesitated before going further. ‘Is it OK to go in?’ he asked, ‘they’re so beautiful and inviting.’

There was a silence as checks were carried out, forms completed and ‘scrutiny beyond imagination’ thought Geoff.

‘Yes, you are eligible for entry, Mr Marchant,’ said the attendant.

‘But how do you know my name?’ asked Geoff.

‘Oh, I know everyone that calls here,’ said St Peter. Anthony Oliver, 69, Bradwell, Norfolk

GAME OVER

IT WAS not the first time they had met. In fact their first encounter had been in this very room. Now the questioning had begun. The look on Churchill’s face gave nothing away but one of the ladies in the room – she was something in the Ministry of Defence – looked tired and disinterested. Adolf Hitler confined his answers to a curt Yes or No.

At that moment Hitler knew it was all over. ‘I am tired of your games,’ he said.

‘Me, too,’ the bored-looking woman said, ripping the Mary Berry sticker from her forehead. ‘I’ll put the coffee on.’ Barry Williams, 71, Croydon

SCHOOL’S OUT

IT WAS a daily ritual, Monday to Friday, every week – Mrs Honeywell called up the stairs to her son: ‘Gordon, your breakfast is ready.’

Five minutes later she called up again: ‘Come on Gordon, get a move on.’

Still no response, so she went upstairs. Gordon was still in bed.

‘What are you playing at, you’ll be late for school.’ ‘I’m not going,’ said Gordon. ‘Why not, indeed,’ asked Mrs Honeywell.

‘It’s all the abuse and bullying, I can’t take it any more.’

‘Don’t be absurd, you get up and get to school, for Heaven’s sake man, you’re the Headmaster.’ N. J. Clover, 74, Norwich

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

‘THERE he goes again!’ Amos glared at the boundary fence, shook his fist at the unseen neighbour beyond.

‘All day long we get it!’ he snarled. ‘The hammering, the sawing, the clash and the clatter – and those boys of his singing out of tune as they work!’

‘I suppose you’ve tried talking to him?’ said his wife.

‘Talking? Sheer waste of breath! Once he gets one of his crackpot notions you might as well talk to one of his damned animals. Still, I’ll try one more time.’

He opened the window. ‘Must you keep on, Noah? Even now it’s raining?’ Dennis Thorp, 88, Manchester

THE EXPERIMENT

THE latest TV reality show was under way. The participants were to be locked up together, for a month.

As time passed, they argued, laughed and cried in equal measure. All in search of fame and fortune. They knew exactly where the ‘hidden’ cameras were.

Every day they heard the sound of a cheering crowd outside.

When the final day arrived, they all gathered to hear the result.

The front door slowly opened. They left. To complete silence.

The tape of cheering had been turned off. There was no crowd. The cameras had never been connected.

The ‘Experiment’ was over. Simon Radford, 58, Bournemouth

IN FOR A PENNY

JIM emptied out the coins from his jacket pocket and took them to the Amusement Arcade where he converted them into grubby two pence pieces and fed them into a machine. He did the same the next day and the next. The coins piled up, clinging defiantly to the lip of the shelf below but all Jim could see was a crisp, new, five pound note waiting to fall.

He continued nurturing the machine with his life savings until there were no coins left.

Now he sleeps in a blanket outside the Arcade. For Jim the penny never did drop. Liz Andersen, 64, Little Clacton, Essex

STUCK ON THE NIGHT SHIFT

NOT again? Blinking nuisance, he couldn’t afford the time. Each jam was a setback, a real spanner in the works. How he hated deadlines, so unfair, every shift they expected him to work miracles. With all his experience he only managed to pull it off by the skin of his teeth, which they all knew he would.

He really was stuck, no two ways about it. Flipping night shifts, no good to man or beast, especially when it was so cold, made it difficult to concentrate, only one thing for it he thought, how embarrassing. ‘Give us a hand Rudolph.’ Kryspin Tompkins, 67, Bournemouth

ANGST

AMANDA cowered in the bathroom. She couldn’t hide forever but she wouldn’t allow anyone to witness her angst; her agony mounted. ‘All self-inflicted,’ she scolded herself. ‘What possessed me to think I could win this unwinnable wager?’

Amanda dreaded her friends discovering how foolish she was, with her overconfident claims. She’d been tipsy at the time… She shouldn’t have accepted this impossible challenge. Time was running out. She was in turmoil, hardly eating.

Finally, the moment of truth. As Amanda stepped gingerly on the scales, a roar erupted:

‘Exactly one stone lost! Not a pound more, not a pound less!’ Efrosyni Hobbs, 58, London