The Tonic

If you want to know the secret of a long and healthy life, ask the villagers of Burntwood Green.

Ninety-six year old Rose Coleman has been making up her tonic to a family recipe passed from mother to daughter through the generations.  Her friends and neighbours all swear by it and wouldn’t dream of missing their daily dose.  But Rose is childless so when Cambridge graduate Jules Marshall tells her that the pharmaceutical company he works for might be interested in making her tonic, Rose is only too happy to pass on her knowledge so that the tonic may go on helping people long after she has gone.

What happens next shocks well-meaning Jules to the core, for he has set in motion a chain of events that he is powerless to stop.  When a multi-national pharmaceutical giant becomes involved, what place is there for a kindly but stubborn elderly lady, whose only crime is that of wanting to help others? 

Rose is about to find out what happens when technology clashes with tradition and corporate profit counts for more than common decency.

This novella is 22,345 words long