P.O.S.H. Portside Out – Starboard Home My Life Story

The liner on the cover is the Empress of Scotland, the flagship of the Canadian Pacific Steamships, known as CPR, a very elegant liner. 

In the year of 1951 at the age of eighteen I was one of the three officer’s stewards on board the liner. That same year Princess Elizabeth and her husband Prince Phillip had completed a tour of Canada and America. The princess was returning to England for her coronation which was taking place on the 2nd June 1953.

In her party were five Canadian Mounted Police. Throughout the seven day voyage, the princess and duke spent every day on the bridge deck of the liner in the company of the ship’s captain and officers. One of my duties was to serve beverages to the princess, the duke and the officers. I was eighteen years of age.

Our Oil - the Man and the Challenges

Farouk Al-Kasim has been called the "Iraqi who saved Norway from oil", and the "greatest value creator in Norway ever." (Financial Times).When he was 16 years old, he was sent to London to study geology. He met a girl from Norway, and they married. Under dramatic circumstances the family had to run away from Iraq, and Farouk became the key man in Norwegian oil administration.He has travelled worldwide to encourage other countries to secure oil and gas for the benefit of the country and its people.

Our Mothers Ourselves

In a world shaken by the great upheavals of World War and the collapse of Empire, six women from different corners of the world transcend the constraints of their different backgrounds. Their physical and emotional migrations open the way to personal journeys which redefine them and enable their daughters to live lives of greater personal freedom and fulfillment.  This book tells the stories of our mothers, six ordinary women who undertook extraordinary journeys. It is a tribute and an expression of love.  

Our Mothers

This book contains a collection of stories written by a group of friends who met during school and university days. Rarely celebrated, these short stories are about their mothers. While these women were from different backgrounds and some were born, or lived their early lives, in different countries, they shared some things in common. They were British by either birth or ancestry. They were middle class and they were young mothers during the latter part of World War 2, or shortly thereafter. They lived in Canberra during the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s – longer in some cases – and contributed to the social life of the growing city in a variety of ways.

Otto Papesch

Otto Papesch was my father. I was four years old when he died. I asked myself for years what kind of a human being he was. I have attempted to paint a picture of that handsome, charismatic, cultivated, professional chemical engineer, enthusiastic sportsman, photographer and family man by basing myself on the vast correspondence that still exists, his diary of 1917, stories about him from my mother and grandparents and the innumerable photos he took over the years. This has been an attempt to describe his prominent characteristics but also shed light on his dilemmas and the contradictions in his personality and thereby to describe the important events of his short life. Would his destiny have been different had he been born a year later?

Only a Yorkshire Lass

Only a Yorkshire Lass is an account of a woman born in South Yorkshire in the 1950s. It follows her life from birth to her late fifties, events which occur in her hometown and in many other countries of the world. It details the high and low points of her life, the people she has met and the people who shaped her destiny for better or worse. It is a story full of emotion, joy, happiness, sadness, anger, hope and despair. It keeps the reader wondering and waiting for the next chapter and what will the outcome be. It also forces the reader to look at their own life and both sympathise and empathise with the writer’s different situations.

In parts, it is humorous and will bring a smile to the reader’s face and in others, one can’t help but shed a tear for the writer.

It is a book that will appeal as there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

One-Way Ticket to Honolulu

Should you follow your intuition in your darkest hour?

Anette is 32 and living an expat life in Hong Kong with her husband, Phil. The world seems to lie at her feet. But when Phil dies tragically, her world stops.

Sitting on the floor at their Hong Kong apartment, surrounded by all their stuff, Anette is asked by his company where to send all her belongings. And the only thought she has is that they should send it all to Honolulu.

One Tear at a Time

When Natalie’s mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of just 54, she didn’t realise the devastation it was going to cause and the changes she was going to face. She faced numerous challenges; from memory loss, incontinence, confusion and accusations to paranoia, relationship breakdowns, a loss of physical capabilities and being sectioned. Her journey with her mum was anything but easy and she reveals her struggles and challenges when faced with caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s.

This book is a real eye opener but also very informative for those facing an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. One Tear at a Time will most certainly make you understand the heartache caused by Alzheimer’s and the devastating consequences it has on family and friends. It aims to raise awareness, help people understand and inform those who need answers about their journey after their loved one is given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. Follow Natalie’s journey from early symptoms, diagnosis and the heartache she endured while caring for her mum. Join the emotional rollercoaster and brace yourself for this tear-jerking page turner.

On with the Show

On with the Show follows on from the first volume of Love and Music, a joint autobiography of singers Christopher Davies and Barbara Kendall.

In 1965, Barbara graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and joined Chris in the musical profession. They had gotten married in 1963 and this is the interesting story of how they coped with what was bound to be a demanding way of life.

On the Eighth Day

Hi, browser! Welcome to the Pacific Northwest of Canada. If you buy this collection of an old man’s memories, you will not be purchasing a history book, or a novel, or even a biography. The old man once taught English at a small University in the hinterland mountains of British Columbia, the Kootenays. The old man has Parkinson’s, a disease with a sense of humour. Parkinson’s patients suffer hallucinations. Our sleep is tormented by pieces of memory that flash like bolts of lightning on a hot summer night. The book is a collection of twenty-six vignettes, numbered, mostly untitled, so you never know if the vignette will be funny, or sad, or shocking, or nostalgic. The old man is watching the last of his life crumble away.

Old Days And Old Ways

Maggie was born into a race of Romani Gypsies first discovered within Scotland in the 14th century; they were then known as “Little Egyptians”, which later got corrupted to Gypsy or Gypo, but were known to each other as “Travelers”. People believe this group of Romanies originated from India, but Maggie strongly believes that her race originated from Egypt; hence the endearing name of "Little Egyptians". From the 14th century to the late 18th century, the Gypsies were viewed with deep suspicion, distrust; sold into slavery and put to death by hanging, simply because they were so different from others. They spoke in their own Romani language, which is still intact today. They made their own medicines and potions for themselves and their horses, and, for hundreds of years, worked on the land for farmers but using old skills to make the wooden clothes pegs, paper and wooden flowers baskets, hedge laying and stone walling. They could also live quite well off the wildlife of the country side, needing to buy very little from shops. They would barter for flour, eggs and cheese from the farmers they worked for. Gypsies are a very self-supporting race; a race which is still in strong existence today, and Maggie is very proud to be a part of this race.

Of Ships and Shoes and Scotland

The author is a Scot from the small (two shop) village of Whins of Milton, two miles south of the Royal Burgh of Stirling. He has always loved the sea and ships, and was master of the first Australian flag anchor handler, operating in offshore oilfields around Australia.

The book covers a wheen o’ topics – growing up in the Whins, then living in Australia, to which he emigrated in 1968 with his wife and family, to his wanderings in the countries of the Pacific Basin. Later, it also makes some comments on Australians, their character and contentment (and pride) as to who they are as a race of people, living under the Southern Cross.

Ships and the sea are never far away. Also part of this story is the Greek Tragedy of the demise of Alfred Holt, the author having been indentured to that heroic and exemplary Liverpool company as a deck apprentice in 1957. The note, Welcome to Country, says it all as to his worldview of Australians, an attitude almost Caledonian in its sense of directness and curiosity, particularly regarding the workings of the vast world which is all around us.