Alan Thorne, the son of a soldier and a midwife from the Welsh Valleys, rose through the ranks of his local police force to become a chief superintendent in his early forties, with an outstanding reputation and several awards and commendations to his credit. However, along the road he made one or two enemies. This is the story of how a decent ‘top copper’ found himself framed by jealous colleagues for a non-existent offence and had no choice but to resign from the force and rebuild his life – and how he then found himself facing a terrible personal tragedy.

A fascinating and very frank insight into how policing works – and how sometimes it doesn’t.

Now available from Audible as an audiobook

In the first volume of his memoirs, As Far As I Remember, Michael Bawtree told the story of his youthful years, from his birth in Australia to growing up in England during and after World War II, with an education at Radley College and Worcester College, Oxford and a two-year stint in the British Army. In this second volume he recounts his experience as a raw new immigrant in Canada, and his first steps as a professional actor, a university instructor, a book critic, dramaturge and playwright. In the years that followed he made a name for himself at the newly-founded Simon Fraser University, where he initiated the theatre program, and at the Stratford Festival, where he eventually served as Associate Director and director of the Third Stage, before leaving to freelance as a theatre director both in Canada and the USA. In 1975 he founded COMUS Music Theatre with Maureen Forrester, and went on to establish himself as a pioneer in Canadian music theatre development. The volume finishes in 1977 as he is on his way for the first time to the Banff Centre, where he was to play a major role in the following ten years.

Michael’s story, elegantly and amusingly written, gives us a vivid picture of Canada’s theatre activity in the sixties and seventies, with honest though not always flattering portraits of some of its most distinguished artists. He is also open and honest about himself, recounting his failures and well as his successes, and sharing with us what became the love of his life.

Carole Mitzman was raised by a vain and snobbish mother and abused at school as a ‘thieving little Jew girl’. Thrown out of her home at 18 just for going on a date, she was exploited by a succession of men who variously robbed her, two-timed her, abandoned her and tricked her out of her house. Yet Carole found the courage to come through, to explore her Jewish antecedents and to find peace and happiness, first by building a new life in Israel and finally by returning to her English homeland.

“I have been a daughter, a mother, a grandmother and now I’m a great-grandmother, but inside I am still that little girl sitting on the bench at Rickmansworth station, searching the trains in vain for the mother who never came”.

Darryl Telles’s sexuality is as important to him as his lifelong passion for his beloved Tottenham Hotspur, yet like other gay football supporters, he has had to endure decades of abuse and threats from homophobic fellow fans in a sport where homosexuality is still so reviled that there is not a single ‘out’ gay player in the top four tiers of the Football League. This is the story of his campaign against homophobia in the football world, his work with the Gay Football Supporters Network (GFSN) and his attempts to advance the cause through media publicity and TV interviews.

“Most of the crowd are white, so you stick out because of your brown face. They’re singing the sort of chants that make you feel unwelcome, and not only because of your colour – they just can’t stand anyone who’s a poof, an arsebandit, a queer or a raving homosexual. And that’s exactly what you are…”