Leslie GH Pride Collins is an English engineer, retired from a successful career in satellite communications in the USA. In this book, he provides the reader with a selection of his short stories which were previously published in a small-town newspaper in New York. He presents a wide variety of topics from politics, current affairs, changes in society that he has experienced in his ninety-one years, world travels and events in his family history.Each story is a quick read, suitable as a small bed-time story. Some stories will amuse the reader; others will describe his views on a variety of subjects from unforgettable characters to life-threatening events which he faced from the Arctic to the tropics. None of the stories is likely to give the reader bad dreams and some should provide amusement and calming thoughts to facilitate a restful night.At the time of publication, Collins lives in COVID-19 isolation in an ancient cottage in the coastal village of Kingsand in the "forgotten corner" of southeastern Cornwall - "close to England" as the Cornish folk say.As a child anticipates Christmas, he looks forward to the day when friends and neighbours will, once again, greet each other with affectionate hugs.