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A round-up of book signings, author interviews, news and events.

A Teenager’s War by Mereo Books

From Huddersfield to war-torn Holland, this is the true story of one English boy serving with the Black Watch during World War II. When he was only seventeen, James Watson signed up to serve the nation in the fight against Nazi invasion. Knowing the legacy of their bravery and honour, he expressed a desire to serve in the Black Watch Highland Regiment, and it would only be a few months later when he began his training and the road to war. Written from the perspective of a close comrade, the true-story of James ‘Jim’ Watson’s wartime exploits follow him from his first day of training to the very last battle he would ever fight. Poignantly and emotionally-written, it is a story that conveys the day-to-day suffering of young soldiers as they fought for the liberation of Europe and for the safety of their friends and family back home. Alongside the stalwart men of the 5th Black Watch, James Watson’s actions from his role in the storming of the beaches on D-Day to being amongst the first to cross the border into Germany in 1945 are recollected in vivid detail. Friends dead and innocence shattered, the true cost of war on the young souls forced into violence is powerfully preserved in this account of James’ war. However the question still remains as to whether he will make it home at all.

Written by James Watson’s nephew, A Teenager’s War is an inspiring but down-to-earth record of the lives of young soldiers and the war that defined their generation.

30th June 2014 0
A Small House In France - Brenda Barrington

A Small House In France

The little cottage stood out against a bleak skyline, forlorn, empty, neglected and overgrown. After a three-year search, could it be just what a retired English couple were looking for as a holiday home of their own? A magical holiday to rural France with their children some years before had sowed the seeds of a daring plan for Brenda and Ray Barrington – to spend the early years of their retirement buying and restoring a cottage in the French countryside for use as a maison secondaire. Their budget and time were limited, but their enthusiasm and determination were boundless. The couple soon found themselves deeply engrossed in their dream project and discovering the full ramifications of owning a rural property deep in the land of wine and haute cuisine.

30th June 2014 0
A Pocket Full of Monkey-Nuts - Joyce Taylor

A Pocket Full of Monkey-Nuts

Joyce Taylor grew up on the banks of the Severn in the years during and after the Second World War. Her home town of Sharpness was then a thriving port with cargoes arriving from all over the world on every tide, and as the daughter of a docker, she had only to look at her father’s clothes when he came home from work to see what the latest ship had brought in, from flour and timber to chocolate, grain, nuts, sugar and fruit. As Joyce grew up she was expected to pull her weight around the house looking after the goats and hens, and by the age of seventeen she was delivering milk to outlying farms and cottages in all weathers using a pony and trap.

Now entering her 80s, Joyce has painted an enchanting portrait of family life in a rural English community in the 1930s and 40s.

30th June 2014 0
A Pecurliarly English Education - Raymond Mitchell-Heggs

A Peculiarly English Education

There’s something deeply unsettling about the school of Saint Eusebius Abbey. Fanatical monks run the school with the power of the birch rod and it isn’t just reserved for unruly pupils. A train arrives at the nearby village of Horkinge and a small boy disembarks clutching a teddy and wondering what his new school has in store. The other pupils have already worried him with stories of brutal beatings but it can’t be that bad, can it? A few hours later another train arrives and a young man called Charles Upton steps off and catches a taxi to the school. After finishing his war service and hoping to escape from a confused sexual past, Charles signed up to become a schoolmaster at Saint Eusebius Abbey but will soon discover a school rife with oppression and corruption. The horrors of the brutal regime of Saint Eusebius Abbey becomes apparent to both as the story unfolds into one of plots and plans in a dangerously-thrilling tale of prep school wickedness. A Peculiarly English Education is graphic, gripping and full of dark happenings that have even darker explanations.

30th June 2014 0
A Normal Life - Aura Angel

A Normal Life

Parental love was in short supply when Aura Angel was growing up, in a household where there was so little money that her parents would burn the floorboards of their council house to keep warm in winter. Her father would beat her at the slightest excuse, and when he left home her mother took over, using brooms and kitchen implements to make sure the blows hurt. Her mother’s conflicts with authority led Aura (not her real name) to eight schools and more than 20 homes before finally, at 12 years old, she marched into the local Social Services offices and asked them to take care of her. Her troubles were far from over; an abortion at 16 followed and two children by fathers who badly let her down. Yet now, in her forties, she is at peace with herself. She has written A Normal Life as “a counselling tool for myself”. It is an extraordinary and moving story, candidly and sensitively written.

30th June 2014 0
From The Wounds Of Love - Harry Harefield

From The Wounds Of Love

Hours spent fishing on a favourite lake and mulling over an unhappy romance gave Harry Harefield the idea of jotting down his thoughts in poetry form, as well as the inspiration for a pen name. Once he had started writing, the ‘genie was out of the bottle’. From The Wounds Of Love is the result.

30th June 2014 0
A Lot Of Loose Ends - Roland Minor

A Lot of Loose Ends

Roland Minor knew early on that he wanted to become a vet. After graduating from Cambridge University, he left the UK in 1963 for his first post, in Uganda. He has since spent most of his life in Africa, holding senior government posts or practising independently in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Botswana, with a brief return to the UK in 2001 to help manage the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. He is now retired to the island of Lamu, off the north coast of Kenya. A Lot of Loose Ends is Roland’s account of his experiences in treating animals of all shapes and sizes and his many encounters with farmers, pet owners and politicians. Some of the tales he has to tell are hilarious, others hair-raising and a few horrific, but all are fascinating. He was given the 2013 Trevor Blackburn Award of the British Veterinary Association for his outstanding contribution to animal health and welfare in Africa.

30th June 2014 0
A Long Way to Tipperary?

A Long Way To Tipperary

Maurice Neal was 15 when he joined the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in 1906. By the time his regiment was shipped off to the Somme to fight in the First World War, he was a relatively experienced young sergeant. He and his men soon found themselves plunged into the full horror of trench warfare, daily enduring the shock of losing comrades and lying for hours in the mud surrounded by dead and injured fellow soldiers and deafened by the thunder of the bombs and guns. Throughout, Maurice kept a candid and beautifully-written diary of events: “Suddenly, a convulsion shakes him from head to foot and he lies still. The blood rapidly drains away from his face and hands. He turns ashen grey, and I realize that no more will Paddy sing to us… I look to the man on my right. He is making a gurgling noise and blood is oozing from his mouth – he does not live long. What are our orders? Are we to lie like this until a bullet accounts for us all?” Now, almost a century later, Maurice’s diary can be published in full, thanks to the efforts of his granddaughter, Stephanie Hillier.

30th June 2014 0
A House To Remember

A House To Remember

What happened at 10 Rillington Place was so shocking and gruesome that even today everyone over a certain age still remembers the case with a shudder. In 1950, Timothy Evans was hanged for the violent murder of his baby daughter; he was also assumed to have murdered his wife. Then, less than three years later, another tenant, John Christie, was found to have killed at least six women, hiding their bodies in the garden, under floorboards and in a concealed kitchen alcove. Christie followed Evans to the gallows. It seemed unlikely that two murderers were living at 10 Rillington Place, and the evidence that emerged in the Christie case eventually led to Evans receiving a pardon.  But there was also circumstantial evidence that Evans had indeed killed his wife and child. Crime student Edna Gammon firmly believes that Evans was guilty. In A House to Remember, she explains why.

30th June 2014 0
A Highly Successful Partnership - Mike Tanner

A Highly Successful Partnership

Towards the end of a very successful career in the engineering manufacturing industry, Mike Tanner joined forces with his wife Barbara,  first to help set up and run a retail fashion business, then to go on to become professionally-qualified dance teachers and run a school of dancing. Now peacefully retired, having notched up nearly 60 years of happy marriage, Mike looks back and reflects that success and happiness are largely about attitude, and that what you achieve in life is up to you – and not what other people tell you may, or may not, be possible.

30th June 2014 0
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