Sailing Through Life...

When Nick Ardley asked for a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, the aftershocks of a prostate cancer diagnosis were momentous. Frightened, he said he was too young to die. Petrified, he understandably broke down. But all was not lost: his family and the boat shared with his wife were soon at work repairing his life.

A life-long sailor, the salt marsh fringed waters of the greater Thames estuary had always enthralled, and it was to them he went for healing. It’s a place where in the free flow of a saline breeze his mind cleared, and he began treating it all as just another little illness. Like a cold, he said, knowing full well it wasn’t! Sailing up the River Thames, he announced to his wife his choice of the medical directions offered. Later, after mooring off Gravesend, both cried together.

Ardley’s treatment overlapped the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, the serious stuff was done and dusted. The pandemic brought new trials. The couple were frighteningly threatened by a fellow yachtsman who disliked an Ardley web blog … the horror of that summer has remained fresh.

Throughout the telling of Ardley’s tales, his story, sailing with family and friends, country walking and living life, he has maintained a normality. Perhaps a familiar story, but it comes with a warning: Men, get yourselves tested before it’s too late!

So, onwards he goes, sailing through life…

Seascapes of a Soul: Wholeness and the Sense of Self

The search for self-knowledge and identity is a common theme in autobiographies these days. So also is the search for a spirituality other than that of the conventional religions. Both are found in Seascapes of a Soul: Wholeness and the Sense of Self. This book is an account of a unique spirit on an often solitary journey. With clear argumentation and transparent honesty, this author presents a story that reaches towards individuation, gained partly through discovering C.G. Jung’s ideas about the psyche.
Several themes recur: the onset of old age, Jungian individuation, solitude and aloneness, mood swings, a rejection of orthodox religion, a love for the natural world, an interest in gnosticism, the inner sense of the Divine. Her relationship with her twin sister is also prominent. There is light and dark here: the ups and downs of living with a twin.
In rejecting the Christianity she grew up with she followed an innate urge to a spirituality that ultimately arose from the strong sense of self she had had from an early age. If this has a name it would be ‘gnostic’ because it is a perception of inner divinity, the God within.
This is a woman’s story with a difference. Although, unlike so many, she did not have to struggle through a life of disadvantage and deprivation, she did have to wrestle with a powerful self that sometimes wandered up blind alleys into ego. But she learned to accept mistakes and incorporate them into what Einstein called a ‘calm and modest life’.
Images of the sea, symbols of the unconscious, run through the book. The ‘seascapes’ at the head of each chapter function in the story as a leitmotif for the modes and moods of the spirit.

See the Colour in the Clouds

Six years after being diagnosed with breast cancer, I revisited my diary and decided to share my experiences.

I reveal how losing my hair turned from tragedy to comedy, how a watercress and potato soup sent emotions soaring, and the way in which my two young daughters played such a huge part in my recovery.

In my own words and images, this is my story; from diagnosis to life after cancer – the complex emotions, the mood swings and the surprises along the way.

This is my recollection of the events and emotions that lined my unique path through breast cancer. I hope that the excerpts, taken from my original diary, are not only enlightening for other cancer sufferers, but that they might throw out a beacon of light to the many families and friends supporting their loved ones through a time of anguish and uncertainty.

Thank You for My Dinner, May I Get Down Please?

The author always enjoyed a sense of freedom, whether roaming around the Somerset countryside as a child or later on, living offshore with her husband and three daughters on a boat. She considers nothing strictly ‘out of bounds’, and for seventy years no-one has stopped her in her tracks. Thank You for My Dinner really sums up the dichotomy of her life – an upbringing steeped in Victorian-based principles and the free license to go her own way, which was generous even by twenty-first century standards.

This is the story of Celia’s early life coupled with a trip down the river, never completely grown up, always looking for adventure, not anticipating danger, but keeping a sense of fun and a smile through various struggles – and surviving enough to say ‘thank you’ at the end.

That Boogie Beat Damn Killed My Soul

I have been involved in the music business in various roles since 1961. I was bought my first guitar when I was 12 years old, on which I slogged away for a year. In 1962, I joined my first band, the Phantoms. Then the Sparticans came for me in 1963, then in 1965, I was invited to join the Nomads, who were local pop stars!

This began a life in which I would meet many of the good and great in the music industry, including a Beatle, with whom we made a record. In 1979, with my friend, old bandmate and future business partner, keyboard player John DaCosta, I decided to open a music shop – the first of many we would open in the coming years. After an epic roller coaster ride of ambition and excess, it all came crashing down for me in 1994 and I was forced to rethink my life. Today I live a complicated but thoroughly enjoyable life in Thailand, still playing the guitar and writing songs, but no longer trying to run music shops…

The Fascinating History of My Direct Royal Ancestors and Their Descendants

The author traces his direct ancestors for 40 generations, commencing with Egbert Saxon, king of Wessex in generation 1. King Edward III is described in generation 18. He was the last monarch in the author’s Direct family tree. He and his wife, Philippa of Hanault, are the author’s 21 times great grandparents. The author narrates the history of his direct ancestors up to his grandparents in generation 39, from English royalty to Scottish nobility, ending with the Krio elite in the former British colony of Sierra Leone. This was as a result of the acting governor of Sierra Leone, the Scottish Kenneth Macaulay, the author’s 4 times great-grandfather, having a relationship with a liberated African, which led to the birth of the author’s 3 times great-grandmother Charlotte Macaulay, who was of mixed race. The book is an entertaining, fascinating and accessible piece of family history with a wide-ranging scope and engaging manner of dialogue, which will be of interest, not only to historians and genealogists, but also to non-fiction readers in general.

The Great Survivor

The First World War offers many tales of survival against the odds, but few can have been so meticulously documented as this. Wounded at Passchendaele in October 1917, then sent to a supposedly quiet area near the Aisne just before the Germans’ ‘Spring Offensive’ intensified, Private William Roberts was both desperately unlucky and extremely fortunate. His wartime diary provides not only a compelling insight into the carnage and mud-filled misery at the front, but also glimpses of rare lighter moments – a quiet drink in a local French bar or the surreal experience of attending a concert while battle raged only miles away.

The diary brilliantly captures his training in Doncaster, with the excitement and foreboding of what was to come, and the blend of doughty camaraderie and daily tedium that was life in a POW camp.

Locked away in a chest for nearly a century, this is perhaps the most remarkable diary by a private soldier of the Great War.

Tiffins & Chanawallahs

Oonagh’s story takes us on a vivid journey through her post-colonial childhood in India, full of color, vitality, and unforgettable memories. However, as she leaves her birth country in 1962 to move to England with her family, Oonagh’s cherished childhood recollections take on a surreal quality. Determined to rediscover her roots and emotional identity, she embarks on a poignant quest.

From the roots of her maternal family, where ‘Staying On’ was in her grandmother’s blood, to the adrenaline-fueled excitement of gleaming gun barrels counted and stacked in pillars by the light of hurricane lamps, Oonagh’s journey uncovers both the beauty and harsh realities of her homeland.

Through her Ayah Ruth’s captivating stories, she experiences the intoxicating fragrance of jasmine on the day of Rinqu’s marriage, and the deep bonds of love and loyalty that define family life in India. With rich detail and compelling prose, Oonagh’s tale takes readers on a breathtaking journey of self-discovery and a celebration of the cultural richness of India.

Times of My Life – Part Two

A sequel to Times of My Life: A Forest Gate Girl, this book carries the reader from a wedding in 1971, to the present day in Wiltshire, spanning 50 years of events that have punctuated the writer’s life up to now. It’s been a whole adventure and education for a girl from a fairly sheltered and strict family background, embarking on married life as a young wife which would soon take her away from the London she had known and loved to following her husband’s career all over the country.

She would eventually achieve all the things she had dreamed of as a child. She would travel the world, meet fascinating people in far-flung places and make lifelong friends. She would have a successful career of her own. She would teach. Her love of music, theatre and performance would lead to one of her most thrilling and satisfying endeavours, running her own musical theatre group with amazing young people and watching them grow in skills and confidence. This memoir revisits those hectic days which tend to get lost in the fullness of time. Treasured old photos bring it all back. 

Most of all, she would have a long and happy married life, and be blessed with wonderful children and grandchildren. There were many adventures and so many reasons to celebrate along the way. But there were also trials and challenges, tragedies and sadness, as there are and have been for everyone, particularly during the Covid years. The best of times always outweighed the bad, however, and the happiest memories will be cherished forever.

Times of My Life: A Forest Gate Girl

Times and lives can be ordinary yet still fascinating and touching to others.Times of My Life: A Forest Gate Girl is the story of an ordinary girl born into an ordinary family and how historic and global events affect the family and her life.

For this writer’s family, it’s a harsh contrast between the luxury of generations of colonial life in India to the privations of post-war London. For the writer however, it’s a fantastic ride from fairy tales, comics and Children’s Encyclopaedia to The Times newspaper; from skipping ropes, Saturday morning pictures and toy pianos to appearing on TV’s ground-breaking show Ready, Steady, Go!

The timeline for Part One covers 1950 to 1971, with references to the rich legacy of family history. It spans revolutions and innovations in science, technology and the arts. London in the sixties was an amazing and exciting place to be. Everything was changing so fast and for the first time, young people were successfully challenging the status quo. Fashion, art and music led the youth movement. For a convent schoolgirl from a relatively sheltered background, it was the centre of her world and the beginning of her adult life. The adventures continue, each moment to be relished and cherished, creating memories for a lifetime and future generations.

Up Long Meadow

Brindley Hosken’s farm, Withan, is a difficult, hilly patch of ground situated on the Lizard peninsula in the south of Cornwall. His land runs down to Frenchman’s Creek. One of the most peaceful, beautiful, and restful spots you are ever likely to find today.

When Brindley was asked to write a farming column for the local magazine, The Meneage Messenger, in 2007, he could not have known where it would take him. Developing a love for writing, his second book, Up Long Meadow, chronicles the history of his farming life over sixty years. As farming has changed from primarily manual, physical work to more tractor-driven he explores how, as a farmer, he has adapted to the changes that have been deemed progress.

His love of Cornwall and especially his locality on the south side of the Helford River shine through in this book, and hopefully will give the reader an understanding of the myriad of different histories and life stories that each farm and farmer have.

Up There

Touching clouds is free, priceless and absolutely exhilarating. To do this, you have to be able to fly. This is the story of a middle-class Melbourne girl, uneducated, lonely in her own family and desperate to find something worthwhile, who eventually discovers flying.

Following a flying career spanning forty years from her first lesson at the tender age of thirty-five, fifteen countries, marriage, divorce, lovers, shootings, robberies and a crazy cast of characters, Up There is a story of how transcending difficulties can lead to amazing things.